Research Priorities for Airborne Particulate Matter II. Evaluating Research Progress and Updating the Portfolio (1999) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
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pursuant to directions from Congress in EPA's Fiscal Year 1998 appropriations report. The congressional request for this study arose from the scientific uncertainties in the evidence base for EPA's July ~ 997 decision to establish new National Ambient Air Quality Stanclards (NAAQS)
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not undertake to evaluate the adequacy ofthe scientific foundation for EPA's ~ 997 decision to establish new PM standards, recognizing that such a decision must involve policy judgments beyond the realm of science that the committee was neither charged nor constituted to make. RESPONSE TO THE 1998 REPORT In response to the committee's first report, Congress and EPA made substantial changes in EPA's research program and other technical activities relater!
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in the committee's first report was the lack of strong interactions with the scientific community in EPA's planning for major monitoring programs to measure PM mass and airborne particle composition on a routine basis. The committee also expressed concern about insufficient detailed compositional and timeresolvec!
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00 nationwide, revised plans for the routine chemical-speciation monitoring program to inclucle ten trend sites where PM chemical-speciation measurements will be made every clay, anti extended some deadlines for the supersites program to allow better coordination with healtheffects field stuciies. The committee supports these changes in EPA's PM research and ambient monitoring programs, and it applauds the actions taken by EPA and Congress.
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2. Scientific Value-How well cioes the research fill important ciata gaps, provide information on causal relationships, build on previous finciings, anti contribute to the clevelopment of an integrated uncierstanding of the health effects of particulate matter and gaseous copollutants?
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The additional criteria recognize the need for PM research to be a national effort involving not only EPA, but many other agencies and research organizations that must communicate and collaborate effectively across many scientific disciplines. Historically, despite efforts by EPA, the interagency Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, NARSTO (a multinational, publicprivate consortium for atmospheric research in support of air-quality management)
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fourth reports in 2000 and 2002, the committee will array the results of PM research sponsored by EPA anti other organizations against the committee's recommended research portfolio in an ongoing assessment of research progress ant! of the remaining gaps that need to be addresseci.
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studies ofthe quantitative relationships between concentrations of particulate matter (and gaseous copollutants) measured at stationary outdoor air-monitoring sites and the actual breathing-zone exposures of individuals to the pollutants, taking into account ambient outdoor and indoor pollutant sources ant!
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expertise in this research area. EPA laboratory scientists will characterize microenvironmental PM exposures, human exposures to ultrafine particles, anti processes governing the penetration of outdoor particles into indoor environments.
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They can be performed by governmental regulatory or research programs at the federal or state level or by nongovernmental organizations. The requireci data include chemically speciated and size-resolved emissions ciata for a sufficient number of geographically representative situations anti source types, compileci into a comprehensive emissions inventory that can be used by scientists and regulatory decisionmakers.
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The committee's first report urged that high priority be assigned to toxicological anti epidemiological studies to iclentify the most biologically relevant constituents and characteristics of particulate matter that produce aciverse health effects. Update: In response to the committee's 1998 recommendation for increased work in this area of research, Congress increased the resources from $4.5 million in the Presicient's proposed budget for fiscal ~ 999 to $7.9 million in the ~ 999 appropriations, and EPA has proposed $6.7 million for Fiscal Year 2000.
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Studies have been funcied by EPA anci other organizations, inclucling population-based studies of incliviciual exposures to particulate matter and copollutants, controlled clinical stuciies, ant! studies of exposure biomarkers in human lung tissue.
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In its first report, the committee recommended that high priority be assigneci to stuclies of the toxicological mechanisms by which particulate matter prociuces mortality and acute or chronic morbidity using laboratory-animal models, human clinical studies, and in vitro test systems. Update: In response to the committee's first report, which recommencied increaser!
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for Fiscal Year 2000. The committee has revised its cost estimates for some of the research areas recommended in its ~ 998 report, based on considerations discussed in Chapter 3 ofthis report and summarized above, as well as on the committee's evolving estimate ofthe extent to which PM monitoring programs will meet the critical data needs of certain research activities.
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A research program ofthis scope cannot be stoppeci and easily started again, and any significant ciisruption in the current anti planneci research efforts might be very costly to the nation in public-health and economic terms.
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There is an overarching need for federal research programs, in collaboration with other research organizations to begin actively planning and implementing such research. ~J In its first report, the committee expressed concern about the lack of strong interactions with the scientific community in EPA's planning for major monitoring programs to measure PM mass and airborne particle compositions on a routine basis, and the need for more detailed compositional and time- resolved measurements.
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