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aerospace manufacturer, the Boeing Company, where a very per- 

 plexing series of adverse reactions occurred in one work site. There, 

 Federal OSHA, NIOSH, EPA, and all sorts of other experts went 

 to look at that program. But that was not a case where any State 

 inspection capability was less than the Federal. 



If I might just elaborate a little bit, I think one of the questions 

 is the ability of States to move forward with their own regulations. 

 The requirement of these State programs is that their standards be 

 at least as effective as the Federal standards. The question is 

 whether in the absence of Federal standards States will move for- 

 ward and then create compliance difficulties for firms which oper- 

 ate in more than one jurisdiction. 



Senator Reid. The workplace situation I am most familiar with 

 is that of Boeing where I conducted a number of hearings regard- 

 ing Boeing and Lockheed's treatment of composite materials in the 

 workplace. Hundreds of people have suffered — ^by their own words 

 and by those of some physicians, even though there is some dis- 

 agreement — all kinds of problems that these doctors say deal with 

 chemical exposures. Many of them are severely ill. Most troubling 

 are the neurological effects on their memories and mental capac- 

 ities. 



But Boeing and Lockheed — especially Boeing— have repeatedly 

 said that the levels of the chemicals are below permissible stand- 

 ards. 



How do you feel, having been involved in that personally? Do you 

 think that OSHA has done enough to address this problem? 



Mr. Dear. No, I do not. I do not feel that with respect to the 

 State of Washington. I think we all worked to learn from that 

 event. 



I also experienced the effects of chemical exposures as the Ad- 

 ministrator of the State's worker compensation program. So I fol- 

 lowed those issues from beginning to end. 



One of the reasons I described the situation as complex is that 

 there were no violations of any existing standard, yet we had work- 

 ers suffering clearly adverse consequences. 



Senator Reid. What do you think we should do about that? I 

 have waited a number of years and people are still complaining of 

 being sick. There are some who say they are psychosomatic and 

 then there are others who say that that is simply not true. Medical 

 science just has not caught up with chemical exposures. People 

 don't recognize what chemicals do to people. 



Mr. Dear. Mr. Chairman, it is a frontier issue. We need to ad- 

 dress it. We don't have enough information to reach conclusions. 

 The effort you are undertaking with TSCA to provide regulatory 

 agencies with better information in a more timely fashion is ex- 

 tremely important to help us deal with the issues. 



Senator Reid. I held hearings in California and back here a cou- 

 ple of times on composite materials. Do you think there would be 

 any benefit to have the General Accounting Office, OTA, or even 

 a congressional hearing in the State of Washington to hear first- 

 hand from people who have your job now, who are trying to figure 

 out what is going on, people who are complaining, people who say 

 there is nothing there? Do you think those fact-finding ventures 

 would be of any assistance? 



