Government Concentrates

Ralph Cicerone elected NAS president

University of California, Irvine, Chancellor Ralph J. Cicerone has been elected president of the National Academy of Sciences. His six-year term begins on July 1 when he succeeds Bruce Alberts, who has served two six-year terms. Before becoming chancellor in April 1998, Cicerone was dean of physical sciences at UC Irvine from 1994 to 1998. An atmospheric chemist, Cicerone holds the Daniel G. Aldrich Jr. Chair in Earth System Science. His research has been instrumental in shaping national policy on climate change and pollution. His research focuses on plasma physics of Earth's ionosphere, the chemistry of the ozone layer, and radiative forcing of climate change. He was among those scientists who identified the roles that nitrous oxide and methane play in climate change and global warming. He chaired the academy's 2001 landmark study "Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions." Barbara A. Schaal, a biology professor at Washington University, St. Louis, has been elected vice president and will serve a four-year term.

EPA hit for mercury air standard

EPA's proposed mercury air emission limit for power plants was set incorrectly and fails to comply with the Clean Air Act, the agency's Office of Inspector General (OIG) says in a new report. The independent OIG says top EPA managers selected a standard that would result in a cap of 34 tons of annual mercury emissions from all U.S. coal-fired power plants, then told EPA staff to develop regulations to support this figure. But the Clean Air Act calls for EPA to base its emission standard on the cleanest 12% of power plants. Coal-fired plants annually emit about 50 tons of mercury, which is neurologically toxic. The report says the 34-ton figure can be reached by utilities as a cobenefit when they install pollution controls to reduce nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide emissions under a separate Administration proposal, the Clear Skies initiative. The report recommends that EPA reanalyze its power-plant data before finalizing the mercury rule. EPA disagrees and intends to complete the regulation, it says. Utilities and some members of Congress also criticize the report, saying OIG lacks expertise and has become politicized. However, state regulators and environmental groups agree that the EPA proposal is flawed and say reductions twice those selected by EPA are obtainable.

Asbestos bill stumbles in Senate

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) was expected to introduce his embattled asbestos compensation bill this week, but continuing problems have forced Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to say he will not bring the bill to the floor until some time later this year. The 291-page bill would limit the financial liability of companies that mined or used asbestos by creating a $140 billion trust fund to compensate asbestos victims. So far, about 74 companies have declared bankruptcy because of asbestos lawsuits. The compensation fund would remove nearly all such lawsuits from the courts. In January, it appeared that Judiciary Committee members were largely in favor of the bill, but unexpected snags have arisen. One of the issues is whether victims who obtain money from the new compensation fund should be allowed to get health care payments from state workers' compensation systems. Another issue is whether insurance companies that have already paid workers' compensation benefits would be reimbursed by the asbestos fund.

Superfund value put at $3.6 billion annually

During the past 25 years, the Superfund program has provided benefits worth, on average, about $3.6 billion annually to human health, welfare, and the environment, according to a draft report from EPA. Health benefits from this program include reducing both the magnitude of exposure to contaminants and the number of ways people can be exposed to pollution. Ecological benefits encompass cleaner water and the use of formerly contaminated sites for recreation, the draft says. Other benefits include removal of unsightly structures and reuse of abandoned property, the draft report says. The Superfund program also offers additional benefits, to which the draft report did not attempt to assign a dollar value, including deterrence-based incentives for companies to dispose of hazardous waste properly and improved emergency preparedness. The draft report examines benefits from the first 25 years of the Superfund program, from 1980 to 2004. The agency's Science Advisory Board will review the draft, including the methodology and calculations used to derive the Superfund program's benefit, before the report becomes final. The draft is available at http://www.epa.gov/superfund/news/benefits.htm.

GOVERNMENT & POLICY ROUNDUP

Regulations on polychlorinated biphenyls may get overhauled, says Susan B. Hazen, acting chief of EPA's pollution prevention, pesticides, and toxic substances program. She says current rules are too complex and take up more resources than are commensurate with the risks that PCBs pose.

The National Science & Technology Council released the report "Combating Terrorism: Research Priorities in the Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences." It focuses on how social and behavioral sciences, including data mining, can help people predict, prevent, prepare, and recover from a terrorist attack. The report can be found at http://ostp.gov/nstc/html/CombatingTerrorismSBEReport.pdf.

Jeffrey Clay Sell has been nominated to be deputy secretary of energy. Sell had previously been in the White House as special assistant to the President for legislative affairs.