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of Congress who would be interested in it. It is not quite complete 

 at the present time. We felt that was important because we nave 

 been in existence for almost 2 decades and there have been very 

 few reviews of what we actually have been doing and how we could 

 do our job better. We think that we will come up with even a better 

 Science Advisory Board when we are done. 



In regard to the proposed legislation, I applaud the thrusts which 

 have been indicated, especially as they relate to the Science Advi- 

 sory Board, and they certainly fit with the mission and vision of 

 the board. I am confident that the board stands ready to help you 

 in any way that we can in terms of fulfilling your goals. 



The bill, S. 1545, contains several areas in which the Science Ad- 

 visory Board is explicitly designated as the agent for external peer 

 review of certain agency reports to Congress. In so doing, Congress 

 indicates the importance it attaches to the technical soundness of 

 the reports which are under discussion. However, there are many 

 technical reports which must be reviewed, both from the standpoint 

 of EPA and for Congress, and some of those are not specified as 

 to how they should be reviewed. You might want to take that 

 under consideration. 



At the same time, I am sensitive to the fact that the resources 

 of the Science Advisory Board cannot possibly review everything we 

 have on our plate. At the present time, we review about one-third 

 of what is actually offered to us. But there are other mechanisms 

 by which adequate peer review can take place and we would ask 

 that the Congress be prepared to accept that if the Science Advi- 

 sory Board felt that additional or different types of peer review 

 were acceptable to the Congress as well as EPA that that would 

 be something that would take place. In fact, at the present time, 

 the EPA is expanding their actual activities within the area of peer 

 review to look at how it might best be done. 



Therefore, I would like to propose that we would at least have 

 a right of refusal because we would be overburdened by undertak- 

 ing too many activities for peer review and that we would des- 

 ignate appropriate people or groups of people to do that peer re- 

 view, if necessary. 



Other than that, I have no further comments. 



Senator Reid. Thank you very much. 



This legislation requires EPA to conduct basic research in a num- 

 ber of specific program areas, including pesticide research, lead re- 

 search, environmental monitoring and assessment program, and 

 the national human exposure assessment survey. 



With these particular programs, do you have a comment on the 

 strengths and weaknesses of the direction? 



Dr. Matanoski. We have reviewed the activities within the lab- 

 oratory and just recently we have reviewed the Mitre report on the 

 laboratories themselves. The Science Advisory Board, in general, 

 has always been supportive of the laboratory activities in all areas 

 in EPA. Obviously, there are no set of laboratories which can con- 

 duct all the scientific research that goes into the regulations, so 

 some is done on the outside and some is done under contract to 

 EPA. 



But in general, that science which is done within the agency has 

 been very well done. The only criticisms we frequently have is that 



