Keeping Pace with Science and Engineering Case Studies in Environmental Regulation (1993) / Chapter Skim
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Science, Engineering, and Regulation
Science, Engineering, and Regulation
Pages 243-250
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From page 243... ...
* The author is indebted to Frederick Allen, Devra Lee Davis, Albert McGartland, and Myron F
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From page 244... ...
In 1992 the National Governors' Association convened several high-level meetings and ul timately issued a series of recommendations that called for slowing the implementation of certain drinking water regulations. After considering a moratorium on implementing already promulgated regulations, Congress enacted the Chafee-Lautenberg Amendment to the EPA Appropriations Act, which mandated a major study on the implementation of the Safe Drinking Water Act, including analyses of the costs and benefits, state implementa
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From page 245... ...
This issue will inevitably be considered in the reauthorization of the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act. The third category, in which the original decision was based solely on the availability of pollution control technologies, is illustrated by the case study on the municipal waste combustor New Source Performance Standard.
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From page 246... ...
government is organized around a system of checks and balances on the theory that adversarial tensions are required to ensure fair and balanced outcomes. The Administrative Procedures Act mandates a complex set of steps, including analysis, development of regulatory options, formal proposal, public comment, reassessment, and final rule.
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has played a key role in helping the agency to set ambient air standards. This type of mechanism should be expanded to encourage scientists and engineers to make best judgments on unresolved technical issues.
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The Washington Post reported that the House Space, Science, and Technology Committee, formerly obscure, was the second most popular pick for freshman members in 1993, largely because of its potential for pork barrel politics (Washington Post, January 26,19931. In fact, pork barrel spending does the double harm of funding often unneeded programs and forcing aside programs founded on good technical assessments of scientific and policy priorities.
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From page 249... ...
of the University of California, suggests that the costs of false negatives particularly in the environmental field are significantly greater than the costs of false positives. Research scientists are characterized as aspiring to find more and better data, to withhold judgment until sufficient empirical information is obtained, to be cautious about inferences about causation, to be ever skeptical regarding conclusions, and to guard against basing decisions on false positives, that is, evidence suggesting something is a problem, when it, in fact, is not.
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From page 250... ...
103~. While one can dispute the frequency of false negatives it may be most relevant where the data on risk and other aspects are particularly lackingCongress clearly thought that the problem of air toxics emissions represented a false negative; Congress dropped the risk approach in favor of a technology standard as an initial basis for regulating a specified list of pollutants.
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