The Interaction of Science, Policy, and the Law in Agency Use of Risk Assessments for the Regulation of Carcinogens

Abstract

The National Academy of Sciences and Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") Administrator Ruckelshaus have both urged that rigorous risk assessment be incorporated into federal agency procedures for the regulation of toxics and carcinogens. Ruckelshaus has made considerable efforts to upgrade the quality of science used in federal agency rulemakings and to assure that "our science analysis be rigorous and the quality of our data be high." In spite of these admirable goals, the current state of risk assessment and risk management in the federal agencies appears to be a tangle of inconsistency. Not only do different agencies use different standards for acceptable health risks, but regulations to control cancer risk may vary by as much as 1000 times even within EPA itself. This article discusses the practical problems of incorporating scientific risk assessments into agency rulemakings and the complex policy issues involved. The first major analysis of current agency use of risk assessment has just been completed by a blue-ribbon panel of EPA's Science Advisory Board ("SAB"). The issues raised in the SAB radionuclides review cut across all environmental laws premised on an assessment of risk and suggest several critical procedural steps that should be immediately helpful to all agencies currently struggling with the difficult problems of incorporating risk assessments into the bases for their regulations of toxins and carcinogens.