WASHINGTON, April 23 (UPI) -- The Environmental Protection Agency's proposed 2003 budget falls short of providing the scientific resources necessary to create the proper underpinning for decisions about the environment, witnesses at a House hearing said Tuesday.
EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman and other officials have said the agency is moving to improve its reliance on sound science. The agency's budget, however, has failed to boost science and technology funding past 1990 levels, said Rep. Vern Ehlers, R-Mich., chairman of the House Science Subcommittee on Environment, Technology and Standards.
"Can we really expect EPA to supply the best scientific information under these circumstances, particularly with so many new developments in science during the past 20 years?" Ehlers said.
The $627 million budget's elimination of the Science to Achieve Results, or STAR, program is particularly worrisome, Ehlers said. The program offers postgraduate fellowships with the EPA, and is vital to building and maintaining a talented scientific corps at the agency, he said. Ehlers' concerns were echoed by both committee members and witnesses, including Genevieve Matanoski, an epidemiology professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and part of the EPA's Science Advisory Board.
"Fellowship support from other agencies does not produce scientists who are responsive to future agency needs for research in environmental risk characterization, risk mitigation and even decision-making and policy planning," Matanoski told the committee.
Eli Pearce, president of the American Chemical Society, said the budget's handling of STAR and other issues is another example of the administration's lack of support for science programs that underpin regulatory work.
"The science and technology account needs to increase as a percentage of the agency's total budget, ultimately to a stable 10 percent level," Pearce told the committee. "The substantial constant-dollar decreases in funding for the S&T account will only hinder the ability of the EPA to achieve its mission."
Paul Gilman, the EPA's assistant administrator for research and development, told the committee the STAR program would move to the National Science Foundation, where stronger competition will yield better participants. Ehlers noted the NSF wouldn't get any additional funding for the program, and suggested it would wither on the vine at exactly the wrong time for the EPA. Matanoski said the SAB's Research Strategies Advisory Committee also feels STAR would cease to exist if moved to the NSF.
Another area of concern involves how the EPA budget deals with homeland security, Ehlers said. While the committee understands the need to address the issue, setting aside 12 percent of the agency's Office of Research and Development budget for detecting and cleaning chemical or biological weapons is troubling, he said.
"The reprogramming of (these funds) also has the effect of reducing funds for ORD's base R&D programs by 5 percent below current levels," Ehlers said. The move is particularly strange in light of the Army's extensive knowledge in the area, he said.
The agency sees the homeland security R&D as a short-term extension of its existing mission to deal with contaminated areas, Gilman said. The effort isn't expected to last more than two years, he said.
Despite these challenges, the EPA is moving forward in embracing new technology to strengthen its scientific basis, Gilman said. Biotechnology-based "microarrays," which can spot dozens or even hundreds of contaminants at once, will speed examination of possible problem areas, he said.
Nanotechnology, the science of manipulating matter at the molecular level, is expected to yield more effective means of cleaning up toxic waste, he said.
