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Senator Reid. Dr. Smith, in your testimony, you state that 

 SOCMA believes that further coordination with other agencies 

 could improve the RM review process and allow Federal agencies 

 to exchange information and identify risk reduction opportunities. 



I would like you to expand on this a bit. What kind of coordina- 

 tion is needed and what would bring this about? 



Dr. Smith. I think this whole issue is one which is certainly a 

 very valid one. I would like to be able to get back to you more co- 

 herently ill a written form afterwards. 



Senator Reid. We would ask that you do that at your earliest 

 possible convenience. 



We have heard today that CBI can be an impediment to exchang- 

 ing information among Federal agencies. 



How do any of you recommend we address this problem? 



Dr. Smith, Let me try to lay out some of the issues involved. 



First of all, we cannot treat CBI as if it were TRI information. 

 TRI information is legitimate information that is available on a 

 widespread basis to the agencies, the regulated community, and 

 the general public. 



In terms of the continuance of the specialty chemical manufac- 

 turers, the chemical identities of the products that they are making 

 and working with are the life blood of these manufacturers. We do 

 recognize that there have been past abuses. We saw some examples 

 this morning from Dr. Goldman regarding this. But we are working 

 constructively with CMA and SOCMA to help the regulated com- 

 munity recognize what we must do in the area of legitimizing CBI. 

 I believe if we do that we will go a long way toward solving the 

 problems that we have today. 



Mr. MONSMA. Mr. Chairman, I think there are a couple of ways 

 that this can occur. 



I emphasize the point that a declaration from Congress that 

 TSCA is a right-to-know type of legislation — that it does contain 

 community right-to-know information and that the information is 

 public information — ^that is one of the ways that CBI can be inhib- 

 ited. 



Another is that the agency has already actually been involved 

 with quite an undertaking of looking at how to improve the condi- 

 tions of CBI, including implementing sunset provisions, requiring 

 signatures of certification from high-level officials. But also I think 

 the agency should be authorized to collect CBI fees. Right now, the 

 cost to EPA in terms of managing that information is quite high. 

 As a practical matter, that cost is borne by taxpayers, not the regu- 

 lated industry. 



Mr. Kanerva. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make one quick 

 suggestion about this. 



It seems to me that one thing the subcommittee could consider 

 would be a change in the statute that would authorize USEPA to 

 enter into interagency agreements with partner Federal agencies — 

 perhaps even designated agencies so that the scope of this is con- 

 trolled, like NIOSH and OSHA^and perhaps describe the param- 

 eters for why they would exchange confidential information. They 

 would work out how that information would be kept confidential 

 across the agency boundaries. Those other agencies handle con- 

 fidential things from time to time, too. 



