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Because the press of business is such in Congress that it is un- 

 likely that this committee or the Congress can take the time to do 

 annual authorization bills, we would strongly urge that you do a 

 multi-year authorization bill, as provided in your bill as introduced, 

 rather than a 1-year authorization bill, as the House has approved. 

 I think a 1-year authorization sets itself up for a situation where, 

 even if we get a bill through this year, we are going to spend an- 

 other 5 or 10 years without another authorization. We need to have 

 a multi-year authorization, keep it simple, and then allow the com- 

 mittee to have the time to do the right oversight and maybe to 

 think in a bigger way about some of the points raised by Dr. Glaze, 

 which are excellent. 



Because I represent an organization which is known as "wet-eyed 

 tree huggers", I would like to emphasize that EPA R&D should not 

 be controversial. I would like to go back to 1984. In 1984, a letter 

 was written to Congressman Edward Boland, who was then chair- 

 man of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on VA, HUD, and 

 Independent Agencies, the subcommittee now chaired by Rep- 

 resentative Louis Stokes. The letter strongly urged him to provide 

 a substantial increase for EPA R&D in fiscal year 1985. The letter 

 said: 



The reason for presenting this recommendation to you is our deep concern that 

 the scientific base on which the agency's regulatory decisions are founded has been 

 seriously eroded in recent years by severe cuts in the R&D budget of EPA. 



The letter observed that EPA needed additional resources to both 

 meet existing statutory duties and address long-neglected prob- 

 lems, such as indoor air pollution, risk assessment methodology, 

 health and environmental effects assessment, and support of sci- 

 entific work in external research and academic centers. These are 

 the same needs that we talk about today, 10 years later. 



The letter said that the added dollars would buy benefits such 

 as "improved health and environmental quality, better based regu- 

 lations for industry, and increase the development of scientific ex- 

 pertise in technical and academic centers in the private sector". 



The most important thing about this letter was not what it said, 

 but who signed it. It was signed by the leaders of 10 major environ- 

 mental groups, but also by the CEOs of five major chemical compa- 

 nies, including Exxon Chemical Corporation, Dow, American Cyan- 

 amid, Monsanto, and Union Carbide. 



The point here is that more, better environmental R&D makes 

 good, smart environmental policy that is good for everybody. 



I would like to emphasize that more funding is needed for R&D. 

 Funding for conduct of R&D at EPA was cut by 50 percent between 

 fiscal year 1978 and fiscal year 1983. It has never really recovered. 

 Recent incremental increases have been inadequate. 



The Carnegie Commission report of 1992 said: 



It is clear that organizational changes alone will not lead to improvements in the 

 scientific capacity of EPA. Substantial funding increases will be required as well. 



The National Commission on the Environment, in a respected re- 

 port, Choosing a Sustainable Future, published in 1992 rec- 

 ommended that, ". . . the Federal Government should substantially 

 increase funding for R&D." 



