Strong EPA R&D program critical to decision-making process

In its position statement on the Environmental Protection Agency's fiscal year 2004 budget request for the Office of Research and Development, a task force of ASME's Environmental Engineering Division (EED) discusses the role that science, research and development play in U.S. efforts to protect human health and to safeguard the natural environment.

"We believe that the EPA's risk-based approach ... provides a good framework for the formulation of environmental policies. The EED supports EPA's continuing effort to implement a research program that is aimed at expanding the role, and improving the state-of-the-art, of environmental science as it pertains to decision making and policy formulation."

The EED expressed concern about the overall decline in funding for physical sciences and engineering within the federal budget over the past decade, and recommended it be reversed in order to assure that complex problems associated with environmental issues can be solved.

The position statement (No. 03-20), along with information about the EED and EPA, is available at http://www.asme.org/gric/ICCFRD/EPA.html.

Also, the EPA has released its Frameworks for Cumulative Risk Assessment, a document that depicts approaches that can be used to assess risks posed by aggregated exposures to multiple agents. The document is designed to foster consistent approaches to risk assessment within the agency, to identify key issues, and to define terms used in the assessments.

In the document, the Office of Water, Office of Air and Radiation, National Center for Environmental Assessment, the Superfund program, and the regional offices are said to already have projects under way that are related to cumulative assessment. The document is posted at http://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/raf/recordisplay.cfm?deid=54944.

For more information, e-mail Kathryn Holmes at holmesk@asme.org.

Engineering societies honor DHS Undersecretary

ASME, in collaboration with seven other engineering societies, hosted a reception at the National Academies building in Washington for Charles E. McQueary, the newly confirmed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Undersecretary for Science and Technology.

ASME President Susan Skemp provided opening remarks, congratulating McQueary on his new position and offering the Society's assistance.

In his remarks, McQueary said, "DHS needs the engineering community to help solve the homeland security problems facing the nation." He stressed the importance of the engineering community in providing human resources like fellows, technical experts, and graduate and undergraduate students to DHS.

The reception in May was co-sponsored by ASME International, AAES, AIChE, ASCE, AIME, ASHRAE, IEEE-USA and SAE International.

Also, McQueary and Undersecretary of Commerce for Technology Phillip J. Bond signed a Memorandum of Understanding in May to allow DHS's science and technology directorate greater access to the work of the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology in areas such as sensors to detect chemical or biological threats, interoperability standards for first responders, radiation measurements, cybersecurity and biometrics.

The Department of Commerce press release can be found at http://www.ta.doc. gov/PRel/pr030522.htm. The Memorandum of Understanding is at www.technology.gov/PREL/MOU030522.pdf.

— Melissa Murray
ASME Government Relations

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