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KEEPING PACE
WITH SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
CASE STUDIES IN ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION
Myron F. Uman
Editor
National Academy of Engineering
NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS
Washington, D.C. 1993
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NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS · 2101 Constitution Ave., NW · Washington, DC 20418
The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the
National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is
autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National
Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National
Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs,
encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievement of engineers. Dr.
Robert M. White is president of the National Academy of Engineering.
Funds for the National Academy of Engineering's work on technology and environment
were provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Academy's Technology Agenda
Program. This volume consists of papers and speakers' remarks presented during a sympo-
sium entitled "Environmental Regulation: Accommodating Changing Scientific, Engineering,
and Economic Understanding," held 11 - 12 February 1993. The interpretations and conclusions
expressed in the symposium papers are those of the authors and are not presented as the views
of the council, officers, or staff of the National Academy of Engineering.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Keeping pace with science and engineering: case studies in
environmental regulation / Myron F. Uman, editor; National Academy
~ . .
01 engineering,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-309-04938-5
1. Environmental engineering Case studies. I. Uman, Myron F.,
1939- . II. National Academy of Engineering.
TD153.K44 1993
363.73'7 dc20
93-5530
CIP
Copyright 1993 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Cover art: Large Fringe, courtesy of the artist, Louise H. Spindel, Falls Church, Virginia,
1993.
Printed in the United States of America
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SYMPOSIUM STEERING COMMITTEE
CHARLES R. O'MELIA, Chairman, Professor of Environmental
Engineering, Department of Geography and Environmental
Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University
J. CLARENCE (TERRY) DAVIES, Director, Center for Risk
Management, Resources for the Future, Inc., Washington, D.C.
ROBERT C. FORNEY, Retired Executive Vice President, E. I. du Pont de
Nemours & Company, Inc., Unionville, Pennsylvania
ROGER O. McCLELLAN, D.V.M., President, Chemical Industry Institute
of Toxicology, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
M. GRANGER MORGAN, Professor and Head, Department of
Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University
PAUL R. PORTNEY, Vice President and Senior Fellow, Resources for the
Future, Inc., Washington, D.C.
JOHN H. SEINFELD, Louis E. Nohl Professor and Chairman, Division of
Engineering and Applied Science, California Institute of Technology
Staff
MYRON F. UMAN, Project Officer
DEANNA J. RICHARDS, NAE Senior Program Officer
TERRIE NOBLE, Administrative Assistant
. . .
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Preface
Decision making for environmental regulation involves a number of
steps in which scientific and engineering data are gathered and analyzed for
the purpose of assessing the risks, benefits, and costs of alternative courses
of action. For parties with interests in the ultimate decisions, including the
regulatory authorities, other governmental bodies, and private organizations,
describing the state of understanding of risks, costs, and benefits is vitally
important. While technical understanding generally will not exclusively
determine the outcome of the regulatory process, this information is central
to assessing the risks and devising alternative mitigating strategies, if any,
from which the decision-making process may choose. No one would argue
that environmental regulation, if not determined by the beset scientific and
engineering understanding, should not at least be based on it.
In a typical case, the scientific and engineering information that is
available about a particular environmental issue is vigorously debated among
the parties at interest and within the government. Eventually decisions are
taken, often after intense bargaining or negotiation about the applicability
or interpretation of data. The process can be difficult, complex, time-con-
suming, and agonizing, particularly for the ultimate decision maker.
The results of the decision-making processes are regulations that serve
to implement the respective laws under which authority the regulations are
issued. Ideally, the regulations reflect in some way our best technical un-
derstanding at the times at which the particular decisions were made.
A fundamental characteristic of scientific and engineering knowledge,
however, is that our understanding may change as new data become avail
v
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Vl
PREFACE
able. Research and development are undertaken to create new data. For
example, the latest diagnostic techniques are developed to obtain ever more
sensitive measurements; the results are more detailed, presumably reflecting
better understanding of the occurrence of substances in the environment as
well as their effects. Thus, as long as research and development continue,
circumstances will inevitably arise in which the technical basis for specific
regulatory decisions will be superseded by better understanding that calls
into question the continued validity of the basis of earlier decisions.
Examples, taken from the daily news, abound: asbestos, chlorofluoro-
carbons, dioxin, lead, radon, tropospheric ozone, disinfection of drinking
water, and more. In some cases, the latest information suggests that risks
are less severe than previously thought; it now appears, for example, that
the risks associated with exposure to asbestos dust depend on the type of
asbestos, information not available at the time current regulations governing
asbestos were adopted. In other cases, new data indicate that risks are
greater than previously thought; such has been the case with the history of
our understanding of the consequences of exposure to lead.
Many environmental laws recognize the changing nature of the techni-
cal understanding of environmental problems. Some provisions authorize
research and development programs as means for improving the basis for
regulation over time while others were intended by their framers to provide
incentives for the development of improved, more cost-effective technol-
ogy, which can also change the base of data on which regulatory decisions
are founded.
The Clean Air Act, for example, provides a regular schedule for recon-
sidering the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, inherently assuming
continuous improvement in our understanding of the sources, fates, and
effects of the criteria pollutants. Several pieces of legislation incorporate
technology-based provisions, such as by requiring the regulatory authorities
to identify the best available or most cost-effective emissions or effluent-
control technologies or the best monitoring techniques, which holders of
permits must then employ.
It is apparent, however, that reconsidering earlier decisions in light of
new technical understanding has proven in practice to be as daunting a
challenge as the original decision making itself, if not more so. The ambi-
ent air quality standards have not been reviewed as required by statute, and
evidence is scant that the various technology-based performance standards
have provided incentives for innovation as their respective authors antici-
pated.
Why? How does the environmental regulatory system, in practice, take
account of changes in technical understanding? Does experience suggest
the existence of thresholds that act as barriers to reconsideration of earlier
regulatory decisions? What factors influence administrative decisions to
. -
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PREFACE
. .
V11
undertake reconsiderations? When might constancy be more important than
revision? Does the system work as well as might be expected, or are
improvements warranted?
This volume is based on a symposium organized to address these and
similar questions about the ability of the regulatory system to respond to
changing technical understanding of risks, benefits, and costs. The sympo-
sium was organized under the direction of a steering committee appointed
by the National Academy of Engineering. Names and biographical sketches
of the committee members are included elsewhere in this volume.
The symposium focused on practical experience as detailed in a series
of case studies commissioned for this purpose. The introduction is based on
the text of the keynote address, delivered by Robert M. White, president of
the National Academy of Engineering. The bulk of this volume comprises
the case studies, revised by their respective authors in light of the discus-
sions among participants in the symposium. The volume also contains two
additional essays. One, by Richard D. Morgenstern, director of the Office
of Policy Analysis of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is on the
interplay between science and regulation. The other, summarizing lessons
learned from the case studies and discussions at the symposium, was pre-
pared by J. Clarence (Terry) Davies, a member of the steering committee.
Both essays are written versions of talks presented orally at the symposium.
The case studies were selected by the steering committee to range across
a broad spectrum of environmental issues and to illustrate regulatory ap-
proaches under laws dealing with air quality, water quality, safe drinking
water, and hazardous substances. The objective was to draw lessons from
across the particular examples to illuminate the more general issues. The
case studies included examples of decision making for exposures (by-prod-
ucts of the disinfection of drinking water, dioxin, formaldehyde), for com-
pliance with ambient standards (tropospheric ozone, surface water quality),
and for the performance of technology (municipal waste combustion). In
addition, one case study, on acid precipitation, was commissioned to exam-
ine the relationships between a dedicated federal research program and the
development of regulatory policy through legislation.
The symposium, held in Washington, D.C., on 11-12 February 1993,
was sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering as part of a series
of activities in its program on Technology and the Environment. The steer-
ing committee identified the topics for the case studies, supervised their
preparation, obtained peer reviews of the resulting papers, and organized
the symposium. The committee also asked a number of people to serve as
discussants for the respective papers to stimulate comments, observations,
and critiques by participants at the symposium.
On behalf of our colleagues on the steering committee, we wish to
extend special thanks to the case study authors and the discussants. The
-
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~ . .
V111
PREFACE
authors are identified with their papers. The discussants were William F.
O'Keefe of the American Petroleum Institute, Louis E. Sage of the Acad-
emy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, B. Kent Burton of the Integrated
Waste Services Association, R. Rhodes Trussel of James M. Montgomery
Engineering, Frank Mirer of the United Auto Workers, and Dwain Winters
of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
We also wish to express our sincere appreciation to the National Acad-
emy of Engineering for its leadership and financial support and to its able
program staff for facilitating our work and shouldering the administrative
and editorial burdens involved in bringing the symposium and this book to
life. We are specially indebted to Deanna Richards, senior program officer
for technology and environment, and Terrie Noble, administrative officer
for the symposium.
Charles O'Melia
Chairman, Steering Committee
-
Myron F. Uman
Project Officer and Editor
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Contents
Introduction
Robert M. White
1
Nutrient Loadings to Surface Waters: Chesapeake Bay Case Study 8
Thomas C. Malone, Walter Boynton, Tom Horton,
and Court Stevenson
Tropospheric Ozone
Philip M. Roth, Stephen D. Ziman, and James D. Fine
Municipal Waste Combustion and New Source Performance
Standards: Use of Scientific and Technical Information
Suellen W. Pirages and Jason E. Johnston
Trihalomethanes and Other By-Products Formed by
Chlorination of Drinking Water
Philip C. Singer
Acid Deposition
James L. Regens
Formaldehyde Science: From the Laboratory to
the Regulatory Arena
Susan W. Putnam and John D. Graham
39
141
165
189
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The Dioxin TCDD: A Selectee Study of Science
and Policy Interaction
7~ 4. Afoore, R~ ad. fig,
~d AffcA~' Oo~6
Science, Engineering, and Regulabon
RfcA~d at. Afor~e~
Environmental Regulabon and Technical Change:
Overview and Observations
/. C/~ ~rf~
Biographical gala
Abbreviations
Index
at.
221
243
251
boa
270
273
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KE E Pi NG PAC E
WITH SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
l
,.
-
