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Senator Reid. Okay, that's music to my ears but listen to what 

 I'm saying here. 



Do we all agree that it's an easier problem to solve if we change 

 the burden to new chemicals? 



Dr. Mum. Well, the EPA has a special gate-keeping rule with re- 

 spect to new chemicals. So with respect to the EPA taking action, 

 yes, it's much easier with respect to new chemicals. 



Senator Reid. My concern is that we have 60,000 or 70,000 prod- 

 ucts that are already being used, have been used, or, as the chart 

 shows, aren't used. But they have been put out at one time or an- 

 other. 



I don't understand how we can shift the burden on those. With 

 the new ones it's real easy. I know we can shift the burden on 

 those. We can just say if you want to use these compounds, you 

 have to show us that they're safe. But these other ones are already 

 being used. They've been used — these 14,000 or 15,000 have al- 

 ready been used and they're being used now. 



How do we suddenly say, okay, show us that they're safe? 



Dr. SiLBERGELD. Well, that's exactly what the OECD experiment 

 was, and you're right to indicate this is a very difficult issue be- 

 cause you don't — even if one could magically acquire the powers to 

 shift the burden, the planet would not acquire the resources to un- 

 dertake the burden. 



It seems to me that there are two general principles one might 

 use for applying the same principles to existing chemicals. I would 

 note one of the reasons for doing that is to sustain the EPA's ap- 

 proach to use specific clusters so that the EPA can evaluate the 

 known properties — if we reform the new chemicals part — the 

 known properties of a new chemical in the context of other chemi- 

 cals already out there for the same use, such as paint strippers. 

 That kind of evaluation would be extremely difficult to conduct in 

 the absence of information on existing chemicals. 



But the two principles are, one, the OECD principle which was 

 essentially high production volume chemicals about which we have 

 clearly inadequate data, and so the burden shift was the presump- 

 tion that above some level — one million tons in production in at 

 least two OECD countries — chemicals should have some minimum 

 amount of information, and the burden was then upon the produc- 

 ing industry to produce that information. 



That seems to me to be rational. It's been shown that it works, 

 and that it has produced very useful information. In some cases, 

 that information was enough to simulate national authorities to 

 undertake controls; for instance, finding mutagenic properties of a 

 high production volume chemical. In other instances, it is support- 

 ing risk assessment, risk reduction activities. And in other in- 

 stances, it will probably support further testing but focused ration- 

 al investments in this universe. 



Another way of approaching it is to use structure activity and 

 march through chemicals for properties such as persistence, and, 

 certainly, the Dutch and the Japanese have examined those ways 

 of prioritizing among the universe. 



A third way and one that I have often been fond of which has 

 not been implemented anywhere is to more fully exploit surveil- 

 lance and monitoring systems for signals as to the chemicals that 



