Rank Environmental, Health or Safety Risks

1. Rank the seriousness of environmental, health, or safety risks. (1)

Heads of regulatory agencies involved in the regulation of
environmental, health, or safety risks should direct their agencies to
rank the seriousness of those risks to permit better prioritization of
their regulatory agendas. This is consistent with the new regulatory
review executive order, which will require agencies to consider relative
risks of different substances or activities within their jurisdictions.
How that prioritization can best be accomplished should be left to
individual agencies.

EPA's initial use of its program managers with a review by outside
experts assembled by its Science Advisory Board has worked well. An
alternate approach was espoused by a recent study by the Administrative
Conference of the U.S. The study, done at OSHA's request, urged that
agency to establish a formal prioritization committee staffed by
politically sensitive technical experts who would serve staggered terms
and be eligible for reappointment.[Endnote 23] Agencies should compare
their own resource allocations with their internal risk rankings.
Agencies should coordinate their development of risk prioritization
processes and standards through the Regulatory Coordinating Group. Once
risk lists are better developed and tested, they should be compared and
possibly even coordinated across agency lines.

No one can pretend, however, that this will be an easy task. Analytical
methodologies and basic data must be improved, and public perceptions of
risk (which often differ markedly from that of scientists) must be
factored into the equation.[Endnote 24] Comparing various types of
health risks with disparate impacts on different populations (or human
health concerns with degradation of ecosystems) requires value judgments
that may be impossible to quantify. Thus, precision in rankings may be
unattainable. But ranking of risks into high, medium and low categories
is realistic. The payoffs from such prioritization should far exceed the
cost of the undertaking. It would inform the legislative process (since
agency priorities are largely statute-driven), the budget process, the
interagency coordination process, and ultimately, the public's
understanding of risk.[Endnote 25]

Endnotes

23. Administrative Conference of the U.S., Recommendation 87-1,
"Priority Setting and Management of Rulemaking by the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration," 1 C.F.R.   305.87-1, 52 Federal
Register 23,629 (June 24, 1987); derived from Shapiro and McGarity,
supra note 19, pp. 18-23.

24. See note 8 above.

25. Congress and agencies often complain that long- range plans cannot
be followed because the crisis of the day dictates congressional policy,
which in turn establishes regulatory mandates.  Political responsiveness
to mood swings in the American Public, coupled with paralysis in the
institutions of government, makes it very difficult to address problems
requiring a steady, sustained, and unphotogenic response.  A panel of
The National Academy of Public Administration, Beyond Distrust: Building
Bridges Between Congress and the Executive (Washington, D.C., January
1992), p. 76.  To move away from a situation where the crisis of the
minute dictates long-term policy, the public needs to be better educated
about the problems facing the country. Reports of a study done by the
Public Agenda Foundation, founded by Cyrus Vance, demonstrated that when
members of the public were given short, balanced presentations on solid
waste and global warming issues, they were able to grasp the scientific
issues. Exposure to these presentations changed their views on how the
issues should be handled to parallel the experts' views more closely.
Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology, and Government, Risk and the
Environment: Improving Regulatory Decision Making (Washington, D.C.,
June 1993), p. 92-93.