51 



many cases putting into place very vigorous pollution prevention 

 programs. 



There is an element of this whole effort that is being driven very 

 much in the private sector. I think one of the real challenges to 

 EPA and the Department of Environment is to try to find some in- 

 centives to try to spur the growth of this effort on and move it 

 down to the medium and smaller size companies. We are working 

 really from the bottom-up with many small companies and they 

 are beginning to see the sense of it. But what we need to do is 

 really get a conflagration going, so a lot more companies will look 

 to their bottom lines in pollution prevention. 



Chairman Glenn. You actually ran the research program there 

 for a while. How many years were you there? 



Dr. Gage. I was there from 1974 to 1980 and ran the entire re- 

 search program from 1977 to 1980. 



Chairman Glenn. Well, you have had some experience in that 

 area, then. Out of the $7 or $8 billion budget over there, I believe, 

 what is it, about $500 million goes to research now? 



Dr. Gage. I think at this point it is right at $500 million. 



Chairman Glenn. No researcher or director of any research pro- 

 gram is ever going to say they have enough money, but is the $500 

 million out of the $7 or $8 billion, is that a reasonable amount, or 

 is that woefully underfunded? 



Dr. Gage. I don't think it is woefully underfunded. I think there 

 can be some very important strategic investments made. The Office 

 of Research and Development suffers from the malady that you 

 were talking about earlier and basically having to contract every- 

 thing out. 



I had the pleasure of serving through three reductions in force 

 which brought our head count in the Office of Research and Devel- 

 opment down by about 20 percent during the time I was there, and 

 that left us only about 1,500 or 1,600 government employees, so we 

 ended up trjdng to manage a third of a billion-dollar budget with 

 those individuals and literally hundreds and hundreds of outside 

 contractors. So I think the problem is really more systemic than it 

 is financial. 



Chairman Glenn. Have you looked into research, Mr. Hair? 

 What do you think of EPA's research budget? Is it adequate? 



Dr. Hair. Well, the question of adequacy always is the mind of 

 the beholder. I think the most important thing about research that 

 I can say is that too much of the kind of research we are doing now 

 is providing answers for which we have not yet defined what the 

 questions are, and so it is really important that EPA focus on what 

 the priority questions are that the research input ought to try and 

 identify. 



We have not made, as a nation, adequate investment in under- 

 standing the fate of chemicals in the environment, either individ- 

 ually or how they accumulate over time. We have not made ade- 

 quate investment in EPA's research program for the effect of ge- 

 netic engineered products into the environment. We have not made 

 adequate research investment into understanding both risk assess- 

 ment and how to transfer that into risk management. So nioney is 

 one question. The question in my mind, though, the first priority is 

 what are the research priorities. 



