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that those ought to be the chemicals that we would look at first. 

 But I am quite sure that they would have very little in common 

 as far as chemical structure. 



Senator Reid. But I don't think we have any good data on expo- 

 sures. How would we get that? 



Mr. Hagerman. We would have to use, as a first step, surrogates 

 for exposure, which would be production volume and use in broad 

 categories. Once that first screening step had taken place, we feel 

 that there would be a second tier of screening that would use more 

 progressively detailed information. The second screen, for example, 

 could be some adaptation of what the EPA is currently tallang 

 about with respect to the chemical use inventory. A third level of 

 screening would be the use exposure exercise that EPA is conduct- 

 ing cooperatively with CMA and SOCMA. 



And finally when we have narrowed it down to a very few chemi- 

 cals where we see a substantial concern, it would be reasonable to 

 use the authorities of TSCA to go and collect very detailed expo- 

 sure information, which I would add, is very expensive to get. 



Senator Reid. You have heard Dr. Goldman testify. She has done 

 a lot of work on testing specific categories of business. She talked 

 about dry cleaners and printers. 



What do you think of an approach in that regard? 



Mr. Hagerman. I think those approaches are very useful and I 

 think that the two she mentioned are real success stories. I cer- 

 tainly think we should continue sdong that line because the sort of 

 open, free-wheeling dialogues that result end up with the appro- 

 priate action being taken. All the stakeholders have had a part in 

 reaching that. 



What I question is whether there is a whole lot of those kinds 

 of clusters out there to work on. Not every chemical is going to fall 

 into some sort of cluster like that. But I think the approach is a 

 good one. 



Senator Reid. Dr. (Jeiser, you have already said that you liked 

 that approach as far as managing chemicals. That is separate and 

 apart from testing them. Tell me how we work on the two different 

 problems. Because there are two specific problems. 



Dr. Geiser. I agree. I think that the testing is something I am 

 less familiar with, since I don't do that. I look to others. 



Senator Reid. But you acknowledge that it is extremely impor- 

 tant. 



Dr. Geiser. Yes. I acknowledge that it is very important. 



The thing I would think about in regards to facing the testing 

 question is that it seems to me that rather than assume that a 

 chemical is just an independent material out there that we need to 

 run a whole battery of tests on, we ought to have a first phase of 

 trying to figure out what the material is actually used for. Then we 

 need to look at an array of substances and test only those factors 

 that turn out to be different amongst them. So when we provide 

 our test data, we are really looking at those things that differen- 

 tiate one chemical against another rather than simply all the fac- 

 tors about a particular substance. 



Senator Reid. Does everyone on the panel agree that we have 

 two problems, that is, the existing chemicals and the new chemi- 

 cals? 



