Introduction

In response to growing concerns about such things as unfunded federal mandates to state and local governments, industry's growing cost of compliance with environmental regulations, the federal budget deficit, and the efficiency and effectiveness of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) programs, Congress is showing interest in risk analysis.

More than a dozen bills and amendments on risk analysis were introduced in the 103d Congress. House and Senate Committees of jurisdiction reported several proposals, and a few were approved by one chamber. This summary draws upon work done for the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, and following pages provide a tabular, side-by-side comparison of provisions related to environmental risk analysis in bills at least ordered to be reported.

Provisions in nine bills1 are compared to those in the most comprehensive, stand-alone, risk proposal, the Risk Assessment Improvement Act of 1994 (RAIA, H.R. 4306). Only provisions that would, if enacted, affect the development and practice of risk assessment or risk characterization are considered;2 substantive provisions establishing a level of safety or tolerated risk associated with environmental media are not compared.

Since the data were tabulated, H.R. 4306 was reported October 7, 1994. However, the House, Senate and White House failed to reach agreement on it or any other risk legislation that would have affected the EPA, and no such legislation was adopted.

Consensus was achieved on risk provisions to apply to the Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Conference Committee reported a new measure, H.R. 4217, that combined the USDA Reorganization Act, H.R. 3171, with the Federal Crop Insurance Reform Act of 1994. The House and Senate approved the Conference Report, and the President is expected to sign it.

The bill as amended creates an USDA Office of Risk Assessment and Cost-Benefit Analysis and requires its Director, e.g., to develop a strategy for ensuring consistent risk/benefit analyses of regulations with an economic impact over $100M. It also dropped the certification requirement mentioned below in favor of requiring the Director to state, e.g., that a regulation has been evaluated with regard to advancing protection against the risk addressed and that it will produce cost-effective benefits.

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Notes

* The views expressed in this paper are her own and do not necessarily represent those of the Congressional Research Service.

** Dr. Schierow is an Analyst in Environmental Policy in the Environment and Natural Resources Policy Division of the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. She received her B.S. (Education), M.S. and Ph.D. (Land Resources) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

1 House-passed, Environmental Research, Development, and Demonstration Authorization Act of 1993 (ERDDAA, H.R. 1994); Department of Environmental Protection Act, as reported by the House Committee on Government Operations, (DEPA, H.R. 3425); Department of Agriculture Reorganization Act, as reported by the House Committee on Agriculture (USDA Reorganization Act, H.R. 3171); House-passed Environmental Technologies Act of 1994 (ETA, H.R. 3870); Risk Assessment Improvement Act of 1994 (H.R. 4306), as ordered to be reported by the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology; Superfund Reform Act of 1994, as reported by the House Committees on Energy and Commerce, Public Works and Transportation, and Ways and Means (H.R. 3800) and incorporated into the newly introduced H.R. 4916; House-passed Radon Awareness and Disclosure Act of 1993 (H.R. 2448); Senate-passed Department of the Environment Act of 1993 (S. 171); Superfund Reform Act of 1994, as reported by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (S. 1834); and Senate-passed Safe Drinking Water Act Amendments of 1994 (S. 2019).

2 The term "risk assessment" is not used in S. 2019, but the requirement to assess risk is implied in the phrases "sound scientific practices for the implementation of the authority with respect to the contaminant [that is regulated on the basis of health effects other than carcinogenic effects]" and "practices that would be necessary to support the implementation of clause (i)(II)" which authorizes EPA to promulgate a standard based on health effects other than cancer that will "ensure a reasonable certainty of no harm."