219 



APPENDIX A 



"l» 



chemi$tf>-. The largest portion of the NASA cnvironmcnial R&D budget today, how- 

 ever, is devoted to meeting the agency's mandates as a primary member of the U.S. 

 Global Change Research program. NASA is the lead agency for extraterrestrial ob- 

 servation and suppon and provides critical dau on atmospheric gases, land surface 

 climatology, and ocean produaivity. 



Pan of its effort to be a leader in environmental R&D, NASA's Earth Ob- 

 serving System (EOS) is an intcmauonaliy coordinated, multidisciplinary spaceborae 

 observation system that serves as the centerpiece of the agency's "Mission to Planet 

 Earth" initiative. Mission to Planet Earth seeks to chan the processes, movements, 

 and relationships among the earth's components as an integrated system, and it 

 will address major environmental issues such as global warming, stratospheric ozone 

 depletion, tropical deforestation, and desertification. EOS employs several remote 

 sensing satellites and a data and information system in its research program. A re- 

 cent report by the General Accounting office on the EOS Dau and Information 

 STOcm is critical of early system design for lacking key advanced information man- 

 agement technologies that will be required for EOS data to be accessible and useful 

 for some time in the future. The repon also stresses that NASA should cooperate 

 more closely with other federal agencies with similar data management experience 

 and similar missions such as NOAA and NSF.***" 



DEPARTMENT OF HEAUH AND HUMAN SERVICES 



Coosiderablc research in the cnvironnicntal health field is carried out through various 

 branches of the Dcparnnent of Health and Human Services (HHS). The focal point 

 for this eSon is the Nadonal Insntute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) 

 within the Nadoiud Insdtutes of Health. NIEHS's research spans a broad range 

 of disciplines and enviroiunental media, and its research funding has followed a 

 steady upward trend throughout the 1980s. The 1991 appropriation was $^03 mil- 

 lion, a large portion of which went toward sponsorship of its extramural research 

 grants program. 



NIEHS's primary mission is to "conduct and support basic biomedical re- 

 search studies to identify chemical, physical, and biological environmental agents 

 that threaten human health.""^ NIEHS has a strong program in toxicology testing, 

 test method development, and validauon. Other areas of research include radon 

 and indoor air polludon, asbestos and lead exposure, add aerosols, methyl mercury 

 in fish populauotu, and the long-range health implicariotts of oil spills. With global 

 change and ozone depleuon high on the national agenda, NIEHS has also devel- 

 oped a program to research the impacts on human health of alternative, nonfossil 

 fuels and the consequences of ozone depletion and of chlorofluorocarbons and their 

 potential replacements. 



Several university-based Enviroiunental Health Science Centers are sup- 

 poned by NIEHS and work closely with the stafT of the institute and of EPA on 

 current problems (see Table A.i). NIEHS publishes Ennmnmental Heahh Penpec- 



