By Amy
Charlene Reed, RiskWorld staff
E-mail to: reed@tec-com.com.
Announcement, January 20, 1997--Volume I of the final
report of the Commission on Risk Assessment and Risk Management
will be released on January 29 in Washington, D.C., according to
an announcement in the Federal Register on January 17, 1997
(Volume 62, Number 12, page 2665). (Click
here for full text of the Federal Register notice.) The
report will also be in RiskWorld, if not simultaneously
with the Washington, D.C., release, then immediately thereafter.
*******
October 25, 1996--After responding to feedback from reviewers, the federal Commission on Risk Assessment and Risk Management will release its final report in two stages at the beginning of the year.
More than 3,200 people requested printed copies of the draft report "Risk Assessment and Risk Management in Regulatory Decision-Making," and many others read it on line or downloaded it from RiskWorld. Of these, approximately 125 sent written comments to the Commission.
"The responses ranged from two-page comments to 20-page reviews with appendices," said the Commission's Executive Director Gail Charnley. "They came from universities, trade associations, congressional staffs, private citizens, public health agencies, consulting firms, state governments, and environmental activists. Most federal agencies were heavily involved before we released the draft, so they had given us their input earlier."
The Commission has divided its report into two parts, focusing on risk management in the first and risk assessment in the second.
Part I of the report, which will be available in January, further develops the risk management framework that the Commission created in the draft report.
"We didn't change the framework; we tried to better explain it," Charnley said. "We did this by providing more information on the implementation and by adding some real-life examples of how various agencies have already carried out some of the recommendations."
The response to stakeholder involvement, which was a cornerstone of the Commission's risk management framework, was "overwhelmingly positive," she said. "Some stated concerns about the upfront expense and time involved in implementing the stakeholder process, but we believe it is worth investing resources in a stakeholder process upfront because it saves so much time and expense in the long-term. We have heard from the [U.S.] Department of Energy and the [U.S.] Department of Defense that they have saved millions of dollars and years of time and come up with solutions that they could not have come up with on their own by implementing stakeholder processes related to their site cleanups.
"We also reiterate that the nature and extent of the stakeholder process would need to be commensurate with the need and the level of controversy of each risk assessment."
Part II of the report, which will be available in February, will address issues such as margins of exposure, bright lines, uncertainty analysis, and the Commission's recommendations to specific federal agencies.
"Margins of exposure, bright lines, and uncertainty analysis were the most controversial aspects of the report," Charnley said. "In regard to uncertainty analysis, for example, we didn't change our views, but we realized that the way we had expressed them in the draft was unclear, which led to people drawing conclusions that we did not intend. We are correcting that."
After the Commission releases the full report, it will meet with federal agencies, congressional committees, and other organizations to discuss ways to implement the report's recommendations. In the U.S. House of Representatives, the Commission will meet with the House Commerce Committee, the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, and the House Science Committee. In the U.S. Senate, the Commission will meet with the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
To View the Commission's Final Report
To receive a copy of the final report, send a fax that includes your name and address to the Commission at (202) 233-9540. The two volumes of the final report also will be available on line at RiskWorld as they are released. To receive an e-mail notification when each volume is posted on line, send an e-mail message to abbott@tec-com.com (those who are already on RiskWorld's e-mail distribution list for the draft report will be notified automatically and do not need to reapply).
To View the Commission's Draft Report
The Commission's draft report titled Risk Assessment and
Risk Management in Regulatory Decision-Making is on line at RiskWorld.
To view the draft report or to download it, click here.
Story posted on October 25, 1996
Copyright © 1996 by Tec-Com Inc.