CERCLA Reform - Risk Assessment

The CERCLA Reform Legislation covers many issues. This summary is limited to the issue of risk assessment at Superfund sites. Currently, EPA guidelines require many different safety factors, which lead to excessively conservative risk predictions, and to costly proposed remediation levels. The public would be better served if these risk assessments were more accurate and a more open public process determined the recommended safety margins as was the original intent of Congress. Some minor wording changes in the currently proposed legislation would require EPA to use the most accurate data available, the best risk analysis available and to give risk managers and the public a range of risks and costs upon which to reach conclusions.

The current proposed bills (104-th, 105-th and 106-th Congress), sponsors and the Internet references to text are:

104_HR 2500 - Michael Oxley  - http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d104:h.r.02500:
105_S.8 - Robert Smith - http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d105:s.n.00008:
105_S.18 - Frank Lautenberg - http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d105:s.00018:
105_S981  - Carl Levin - http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d105:s.00981:
105_HR.2727 - Sherwood Boehlert - http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d105:H.R.2727:
105_HR.3000 - Michael Oxley - http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d105:h.r.03000:
106_S. 20 - Frank Lautenberg - http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?c106:CERCLA

You may find more details at: http://home.comcast.net/~brooks50/cer_lnk.htm

The following are some previously suggested changes:

HR.2500 - http://home.comcast.net/~brooks50/hr2500.txt
S.8 - http://home.comcast.net/~brooks50/mrkupak2.txt
S.981 - http://home.comcast.net/~brooks50/s981com.html
HR.2727 - http://home.comcast.net/~brooks50/hr2727cm.htm

Additional new bills will be introduced into the 106-th Congress and these changes will be applied anew. In general the wording of the bills has improved as the process rolls along. We need to continue to suggest changes for more improvements.

Contacts:

Sen William Frist, 416 Russell Office Building, Washington, DC 20510
Sen Fred Thomson, 523 Dirksen Office Building, Washington, DC 20510
Rep. Zach Wamp, 423 Cannon Office Building, Washington, DC 20515
Rep John Duncan, 2400 Rayburn Office Building, Washington, DC 20515-4202
Rep Van Hilleary, 114 Cannon Office Building, Washington, DC 20515

Frank Lautenberg, 506 Senate Hart Office Building, Washington, DC 20510-3002
Michael Oxley, 2233 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515-3504
Sherwood Boehlert, 2246 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515-3223
Robert Smith, 307 Senate Dirksen Office Building, Washington, DC 20510-2903
Carl Levin, 459 Senate Russell Office Building, Washington, DC 20510-2202

The responsible Committee chairs and staff are also candidates.