by allowing them to impose or revise emission limits so long as they make progress toward meeting the national ambient air quality standards. However, the standards must be placed on a firmer scientific footing, CMA says. They should be based on "valid and relevant scientific crite ria," and be subject to "truly inde pendent" review. The association slips in the idea of cost-benefit anal ysis in setting these national air quality standards by calling for con sideration of "unreasonable risk" in establishing the standards. Writing in Regulation, the journal of the American Enterprise Institute, Harvard professor David Harrison Jr. and Resources for the Future fellow Paul R. Portney agree in part with CMA. "It may be time to scrap the uniform national standards alto gether. The threshold concept is in
disrepute, and the prohibition on balancing costs and health effects is a luxury we no longer can afford," they contend. Harrison and Portney recommend that ambient and new source stan dards be based on "a rough balance between the benefits and costs of additional control," that ambient and source standards vary from region to region across the U.S., and that eco nomic incentives become a more in tegral part of air pollution policy. The General Accounting Office is examining economic incentives in one of its six ongoing reviews of issues surrounding the Clean Air Act. In addition to the studies in progress, GAO has released 15 major reports on the air law. Summaries of the 21 re ports can be found in "Clean Air Act: Summary of GAO Reports," April 1, 1981, CED-81-84. D
Democrats' budget plan vins in House panel As expected the House Budget Committee last week rejected Presi dent Reagan's economic program on a party-line vote, preferring instead one developed by the committee's chairman, Rep. James R. Jones (D. -Okla.). The Democrats' program calls for spending nearly $714 billion in fiscal 1982, a figure they claim is $4.3 billion less than Reagan's program would cost. The Administration proposed spending $695 billion in fiscal 1982, but the Democrats contend that the Administration underestimated the rate of inflation and that the real fig ure for its program is almost $718 billion. The Jones plan would allow a net tax cut of slightly more than $30 billion in fiscal 1982, compared to the $51.4 billion cut proposed by Presi dent Reagan and the $50.4 billion tax cut recommended earlier by the House Ways & Means Committee. Nevertheless, one House Republi can, James G. Martin of North Car olina, characterizing himself as a disappointed optimist, is pleased that the Budget Committee has accepted three quarters of the President's program. Martin, a Ph.D. chemist who serves on both the Budget and Ways & Means committees, told the Chemical Manufacturers Association recently that the committee accepted most of Reagan's policy changes. He notes that the restorations amount to saving on a smaller scale some pro grams scheduled for oblivion so that if the political winds change they can be restored. In the tax area, Martin predicts
that if any bill passes, an accelerated capital depreciation scheme for in dustry will be part of it. There is also support, he says, for reducing the 70% tax bracket to 50% right away, for making some further adjustment in the maximum capital gains tax, and for providing a credit at the lower end of the income scale to offset social security tax increases. He adds that there also may be a modest tax in centive for R&D. Debate is now in progress on whether the incentive should be keyed to universities or industries or shared by both. In the regulatory area Martin sees a more positive, productive attitude in this Congress. He predicts that in
Martin: disappointed optimist
reauthorizing the Clean Air Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, Con gress will move toward more objective standards based on health effects, rather than the present approach of pulling some arbitrary number off the shelf and forcing technology to meet it. D
Squibb antihypertensive gets limited FDA okay E. R. Squibb & Sons says the Food & Drug Administration has given it limited approval to market Capoten (captopril), the company's new drug for treatment of high blood pressure. Use will be limited to "hypertensive patients who, on multidrug regimens, either have failed to respond satis factorily or have developed unac ceptable side effects," Squibb says. Captopril (2-D-methyl-3-mercaptopropanoyl-L-proline) has aroused scientific interest because it's the first orally active drug to act directly on a presumed primary cause of high blood pressure, malfunction of the renin-angiotensin system. Other an tihypertensive drugs work by more general mechanisms: diuresis, vaso dilation, or blockage of the β-receptors of the adrenergic nervous system. Also, captopril is an example of a drug "designed to order" (C&EN, April 4, 1977, page 21). High blood pressure can result from overpro duction of angiotensin II, a powerful vasoconstrictor produced by enzyme action on inert precursors. Squibb scientists earlier had synthesized a nonapeptide that inhibited the en zyme, but that compound was effec tive only when injected. Studies of the enzyme showed that its active site was similar to that of the digestive enzyme carboxypeptidase A, the structure of which was well known. With that knowledge, and concentrating on each suspected site of interaction between enzyme and substrate, the Squibb workers were able to synthesize a new class of in hibitors, one of which—captopril— was effective orally. The drug lowers blood pressure, while avoiding the side effects (nau sea, malaise, dizziness, impotence) of many currently used antihyper tensive drugs. However, captopril has its own side effect, including lowering of the white cell count and protein uria. These effects appear only at el evated dosages; FDA limitations on the drug's use may be relaxed as more experience is gained. D April 13, 1981 C&EN
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