Re: Joint Commission Report - public he

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

Al Tschaeche wrote:

> Sandy Perle wrote:
> 
> >  In releasing the report Tuesday, the commission's chairman is calling
> >   upon Congress to shift the focus of laws such as the Clean Air Act
> > from the regulation of specific contaminants to a wider view of
> > overall air quality.
> 
> We need a US Department of Safety.  Much as I hate the Federal
> Govenment's current Agency set up, there is too little coordination
> among the various agencies with respect to setting safety standards. 

Even within single agencies today there are no consistent standards.
Regulation and actions are based on "political targets of opportunity". A Dept 
of Safety won't fix the problem unless there is a better basis to expect
science and objective analysis replace agency opportunism as a basis for
health and safety standards, applying the standards of the "Admin Procedure
Act" to actually limit "arbitrary and capricious" decisions. (This still won't 
prevent Congress from "targets of opportunity", eg, Delaney Amendment, don't
apply chemical standards to coal, etc. But agencies should not the same
political latitude.) 

> Somehow nuclear safety, transportation safety, chemical safety, food
> safety, environmental safety, occupational safety, etc., etc. need to be
> on an equal footing vis-a-vis standards, budget, etc.
> At least then the public would be able to see how various risks compare
> and where the biggest improvement overall in safety can be obtained for
> each tax dollar spent.  I agree.  We are too piecemeal now.
> 
>  Much of risk assessment involves value judgment, and Omenn
> > said when scientists extrapolate beyond their experiments they need to
> > be overly cautious.
> 
> Seems to me we are getting into the mode of: you are guilty until proven
> innocent instead of: you are innocent until proven guilty.  Sure, we
> have made mistakes using the latter philosophy.  But the cost of the
> former is breaking the bank.  We need a good middle ground.  Realistic,
> not conservative (e.g. "overly cautious") seems to me to be a better
> philosophy.
> >  Omenn says, ``The public's in as good a position to debate as the
> > experts. Common sense counts for a lot.''
> 
> Common sense counts when one has all the facts.  The public does not
> always have any of the facts when the media, from which the public gets
> the "facts" continues to present one sided information.  Alar, dioxin,
> radiation come immediately to mind.  Remember, poverty is the biggest
> killer of humans.  Does this proposal address that problem?

The media isn't to blame for public misinformation, when EPA produces a
political disinformation campaign on radon and dioxin, using NCRP and BEIR as
proving all radiation is harmful. 

> Al Tschaeche xat@inel.gov

Thanks.

Regards, Jim Muckerheide
jmuckerheide@delphi.com