33 
Mr. Mitchell drew the attention of the assembly to the recent Office of 
Technology Assessment report " Conner cial Biotechnology: An International 
Analysis." He said a chart on page 309 of that report shove the amount of 
Federal monies dispensed for research in biotechnology in fiscal year 1982. 
He noted that the largest share of research defined as "biotechnology" is 
supported by the NIH. 
XI. EtTIURE MEETING DATE 
Mr. Mitchell said the next meeting of the RAC would probably be held in 
ea rly June. He said Dr. Gartland and Ms. Connors would contact the members 
by telephone to arrange the specific date. 
XEI. PROPOSED AMENDMENTS OF SECTION III AND III-A OF TOE GUIDELINES 
Mr. Mitchell introduced the proposal (tabs 1127, 1128, 1133/1, 1136) of 
Messrs. Jeremy Rifkin and Edward Lee Rogers on behalf of the Foundation on 
Economic Trends, Mr. Michael W. Ebx of Environmental Action, Inc., and 
Environmental 'Risk Force to amend the NIH Guidelines . 
The first part of the proposal would change the title of Section III of 
the Guidelines from "Containment Guidelines for Covered Experiments" to 
"Guidelines for Covered Experiments." Messrs. Rifkin and Rogers argue 
that the current title of Section III reflects an orientation towards 
experiments contained within a laboratory. However, the RAC is reviewing 
experiments involving the deliberate release into the environment of certain 
organisms containing recombinant ENA. Messrs. Rifkin and Rogers stated 
that: 
"Accordingly, the focus should no longer be on the concept of containment 
alone, tut rather on guidelines to assure safety for all experiments, 
whether through containment procedures or other techniques." 
The second part of the proposal would amend Section III-A of the Guidelines 
by adding at the end thereof the following paragraph: 
"A programmatic environmental impact statement (EIS) is required under 
the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4332, and the 
Council on Environmental Quality Regulations (CEQ Regs) implementing 
NEPA, 40 CFR §§1502.1-1520.25, for the program involving deliberate 
releases into the environment of recombinant DNA molecules . " 
The third part of the proposal would be to amend Section III-A further by 
adding after the material set forth in the prior amendment the following 
paragraph: 
"Individual experiments involving deliberate releases into the 
environment of an organism containing recombinant DNA require the 
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