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Rather than characterizing its work as basic research, applied research, or development, as do many R&D outfits, Noonan explains, ORD uses two catego ries: problem-driven research and core research. Thefirsttype is focused on a specific set of problems, such as drinking water contaminants or climate change, that maintains a research facility in Re has both short-term and long-term is Cheryl Hogue search Triangle Park, N.C., a laboratory sues for investigation. For instance, C&EN Washington for radiation and indoor air research in ORD efforts on drinking water include he Environmental Protection Las Vegas, and an air and radiation envi near-term completion of research on ar Agency depends on the results of ronmental laboratory in Montgomery, senic and long-term investigation into scientific research to help it make Ala. But ORD shoulders most of the re microbial pathogens, she says. informed policy decisions on current sponsibility for the agency's in-house "Problem-driven work is essentially and emerging environmental problems scientific investigation. oriented to, if I can use the corporate posing risks to the health of people and ORD carries out a multitude of tasks analogy again, the other businesses in ecosystems. Much of the scientific in at EPA's Washington, D.C., headquarters the company," Noonan says. "That is, formation and tools EPA relies on is and at 13 facilities scattered across the we work very closely with the air office; generated within its Office of Research U.S. It examines the effects of contami water office; the Office of Pesticide, Pol & Development (ORD). Unlike most of nants on human health and the environ lution Prevention & Toxic Substances; the rest of the agency, ORD has no di ment. It develops tools for risk assess and the Office of Solid Waste & Emer rect regulatory function, although it pro ment, such as software that simulates the gency Response in planning that portfo vides technical information used by pro movement of pollution from a factory's lio of work on an annual basis." grams controlling air and water pollu smokestacks. Some ORD researchers Core research, in contrast, involves tion, waste, and chemicals. collecting data and developing tools, such as computer model At the helm of ORD since 1998 ing of pollution, that are not nec is Norme Ε. Noonan. She com essarily specific to a particular pares her job as EPA assistant ad EPA program office but can be ministrator for research and de broadly applied. velopment to the post of presi dent of R&D at a corporation. She "A lot of our basic human sees one of her responsibilities as health research and ecological ensuring that scientific informa research is in that core research tion is available to the heads of portfolio—understanding expo sure, understanding how to as sess ecosystem health," Noonan explains.
R&D AT EPA
Assistant administrator examines the role and challenges of agency's research arm
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Scientists at EPA's Office of Research & Development work at the lab bench, take samples In the field, and develop computer models.
work to improve the assessment of human and ecosystem exposure to pollutants. The office conducts re other units in the organization. At EPA, search on technology to prevent and these other units are the program offic control pollution and administers es implementing environmental laws grants and fellowships for extramu such as the Clean Air Act and the Safe ral research funded by the agency. Drinking Water Act. She says her other Some ORD researchers do much of "strategic responsibility" is to ensure their work collecting samples in the ORD conducts research that will help field. Others are bench scientists work EPA as a whole carry out its mission to ing in labs conducting analyses. Some protect human health and the environ are developing computer models for ment over the long term. tracking the movement of pollution. Still Not all EPA research is conducted others work with computer models, toxwithin ORD. Agency program offices icological data, and exposure informa also do some of their own research. For tion to assess the risk posed by specific instance, the Office of Air & Radiation pollutants.
This research category scheme stemsfroma mid-1990s shake-up of the office under former ORD Assistant Ad ministrator Robert J. Huggett, who served from 1994 to 1997. Huggett, now vice president for research and gradu ate studies at Michigan State Universi ty, engineered a major reorganization of ORD following years of criticism by Congress and reports recommending changesfromoutside experts and comOCTOBER 30,2000 C&EN 2 7
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Developing a workforce for the future With leading-edge baby boomers reach ing their mid-50s and starting to retire, some predict a shortage of trained scien tists to staff research organizations. To address this issue, the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research & Development (ORD) is instituting pro grams designed to ensure its future per sonnel needs are met Norine E. Noonan, EPA assistant ad ministrator for ORD, says, "1 think ev ery science organization—industrial, ac ademic, government—nat any level is fac ing a big challenge in the next 10 years. "What the demographics tell us is that our traditional pools from which we have drawn our scientists and engineers are lessening in the population and the nontraditional pools from whence we must draw our future scientists and engineers are growing." She explains that "nontraditional pools" are underrepresented mi norities and women* This presents a challenge, I think, because all of us who are in the science and technology business are going to be competing for a lot of the same people," Noonan says. Thus ORD created a graduate fellow ship program. "We hope that many of those students will build their careers on the problems that are of interest to EPA and are of interest to the nation. Ifs enlightened self-interest—we hope to eventually hire some of those peo ple," Noonan says. "That program has been wildly successful in the sense that we have many more applications [than openings]—we get 10 applica tions for every slot" The fellowship program supports master's as well as doctoral students. "Particularly in the engineering disci plines, Ph.D.8 are not necessarily re quiredfora career," she says. "You can be an excellent and very productive and highly creative engineer and rise to the top of your organization with a master's
missions. The reorganization strength ened peer review within ORD, cut staff at the Washington headquarters, and changed the way various labs and cen ters relate to each other. E. Timothy Oppelt, director of ORD's National Risk Management Research Laboratory in Cincinnati, credits Noonan with fostering cooperation and teamwork among ORD's various labs and research centers. Oppelt, who has worked at ORD since EPA was created in 1970, says Huggett's legacy is the reorganization—the "most radical change" at ORD since EPA's inception—while Noonan's legacy is completing implementation of that re 28 OCTOBER 30,2000 C&EN
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Noonan: competittonb growingforworker*
Meanwhile, EPA has created a pro gram for postdoctoral fellows to work in ORD labs that is in addition to the post doctoral programs already sponsored by the National Research Council, uni versities, and other research programs. The goal of the EPA program was to have 150 postdocs on three-year terms, with 50 changing over each year. The program got off to a good start—50 were hired in 1998. But a hiring freeze al lowed EPA to bring only 16 postdocs on board the second year. This year, the freeze was lifted, and the agency hopes to add another 50, Noonan says. 'These people are incredibly smart,'' she says. "Some of them gave up faculty positions to come back to be postdocs in the environmental area, interestingly enough. This is our most diverse pool of employees right now." Noonan acknowledges that most of these postdocs likely will go on to work outside EPA. "Some portion of them will organization and getting the disparate parts of ORD working together as a team. But Peter W. Preuss, director of ORD's National Center for Environmen tal Research & Quality Assurance in Washington, D.C., says, "Her contribu tion is much greater than implementing Huggett's ideas." Noonan made sure that the re-created ORD would be well established and wouldflourish,he says. Preuss, who has worked at ORD for the past 15 years, says that perhaps Noonan's greatest legacy will be in estab lishing a long-term research plan that sets out specific objectives and deadlines for each ORD lab and center to meet in
stay—we will recruit them and hire them," she says. The others will move into the academic, industrial, and non profit research communities where they will be able to share their experiences about the problems EPA studies and the capabilities ORD has. Meanwhile, Noonan says, "we're also reaching out specifically to underrepre sented minorities" through a faculty de velopment program established in an agreement with the National Associa tion for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education. This group, based in Silver Spring, Md·, represents 118 historical ly black colleges and universities. "Faculty membersfromthese institu tions are coming now to our laborato ries for terms ranging anywhere from four months to a year... to work in our laboratories with a colleague, a [primary investigator], in EPA" as a sabbatical or other leave, she says. "We're interested in the faculty development aspect of these individuals specifically, of course, but more important, again in enlight ened self-interest, we want their stu dents both at the undergraduate and graduate levels." Phis, she says, EPA plans to expand this program to include institutions that are predominantly Latino through an agreement with the Hispanic Associa tion of Colleges & Universities. That as sociation, headquartered in San Anto nio, Texas, represents more than 200 colleges and universities that collective ly enroll two-thirds of all Hispanics in U.S. higher education. Noonan acknowledges that these steps, while positive, are insufficient to address the coming shortage of scien tifically trained personnel. "Have we solved the problem? No. But we're working on it," she says. "I think we're taking as many proactive steps as we possibly can to be readyforthe day— and ifs coming—when we're going to see an increasing number of retirements. "We hope we're ahead of the game," Noonan says. the coming years. "That's something we've never had in ORD before," he says. Previously, the agency had a strategy for its research office, but not "a detailed road map of where we're going and how to get there," Preuss explains. Oppelt says Noonan recognizes that ORD's strength lies in its ability to work across various environmental media and scientific disciplines to pull together in formation on environmental science and technology. Noonan "has good instincts on what research is important and good judgment on where our program should be going," Oppelt says. Noonan is well connected in the scientific community,
he adds, and is able to call on individual researchers when EPA's Office of Research & Development facilities ORD needs collaboration on a project Duluth, Minn. Grosse Ile, Mich. Cincinnati, Ohio Newport, Ore. "Norine has been tremendous for us," Oppelt Corvallis, Ore. says. "She's really peoplefslarragansett, R.I. oriented." In addition, he says, "She's just a fun perEdison, N.J. son. She's not a stiff shirt." Washington, D.C. The future of ORD, like that of all executive branch Research agencies, awaits the outTriangle Park, N.C. come of the November elecLas Vegas, Nov. Chapel Hill, N.C. tions. Noonan's future at the Athens, Ga. agency is also uncertain. New presidents have always named new EPA adminisAda, Okla. Gulf Breeze, Fla. trators, who in turn are involved in the selection of assistant administrators for agency offices, including ORD. tal Effects Research Laboratory is in Re- to Noonan, who says it "allows us to do Noonan's career has included stints as search Triangle Park and oversees work in a variety of different settings both a Washington policy insider and an work done in Narragansett, R.I.; Gulf and, I think, allows us to make progress academic administrator. Before taking Breeze, Fla.; Duluth, Minn.; and Corval- a lot faster because we're not limited to her EPA post, Noonan was vice president lis, Ore. having to send people to all of these lofor research and the dean of the graduate But geographic dispersion is also cations. This is where people live, and school at Florida Institute of Technology, one of ORD's greatest assets, according they work there. It makes it easier to Melbourne. Noonan, who earned a Ph.D. in cell biologyfromPrinceton University, got her policy start in 1982 as an American Chemical Society Congressional Science Fellow, serving on the staff of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation. After her fellowship ended in 1983, Noonan joined the Science & Space Programs Branch at the White House Office of Management & • cGMP Budget She rose to chief of that branch, • FDA inspected a job she held forfiveyears. • ask for our services Noonan says her ACS Congressional Science Fellowship "changed my life and enabled me to really pursue a career that, without that kind of support, I would never have been able to do. Without the opportunity to do that fellowPHYTOCHEMICALS ship, hopefully I'd be a professor by now, and I think I would be. Maybe I'd be a dean. Perhaps a vice president! But BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM PHARMA KG I would have had my experience entireFine Chemicals ly in a university. D-55216 I n g e l h e i m / G e r m a n y Phone: ++49 6132 773889 "Between this job and my almost 10 Fax: ++49 6132 776680 Email:
[email protected] years at the Office of Management & www.boehringer-ingelheim.com/finechem Budget, I think perhaps I've done my BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM CHEMICALS. INC. best work not at the bench," she says. Petersburg. VA/USA "Not to say I wasn't a good scientist." Phone: ++1 800 BICHEM6 Fax: ++1 804 8630998 One of the biggest challenges at ORD, Noonan says, is that some of its NIPPON BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM CHEMICALS CO.. LTD. 2,000 employees at the 14 facilities Tokyo /Japan Boehringer Phone: ++81352946151 throughout the U.S. may report to a Fax: ++81352946166 Iniiclhcim manager who is thousands of miles away. For instance, the director of ORD's National Health & EnvironmenCIRCLE 3 ON READER SERVICE CARD
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OCTOBER 30,2000 C&EN 2 9
government &
policy The agency next must evaluate how well the MACT program is controlling risks to human health from air toxics. EPA must determine if the technologybased standards leave a "residual risk" to people and the environment. If EPA's initial analysis indicates that the technology-based standards for a particular industry aren't protective of public health and the environment, the agency must issue new regulations requiring further cuts in emissions of hazardous air pollutants. The Clean Air Act requires that, if a residual risk regulation is needed, EPA must finalize it within eight years after the agency issues the MACT standard for an industry. For some of the earlier MACT standards, the deadline falls nine years after they are finalized. The clock is ticking. The first riskbased regulations for air toxics, if they are needed, are due in 2001. An SAB report issued this past summer cast doubt on EPA's ability to carry out a residual risk control program. In recent months, SAB reviewed EPA'sfirststab at conducting a residual risk assessment. For this work, which is When Congress amended the Clean still in progress, EPA examined the reAir Act a decade ago, it singled out 188 maining air toxics emissions of the secchemicals for special attention. These ondary lead-smelting industry. The substances, which include carcinogens agency picked this sector for the initial such as benzene and widely used indus- residual risk effort because this industrial compounds such as hexane, were try has only 24 facilities in the U.S. and listed as hazardous air pollutants, or, has a large database of air emission monitoring information. more simply, air toxics. In a letter to EPA Administrator CarThe 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act require EPA to set standards using ol M. Browner that accompanied its repollution control devices on large sources port, SAB said the agency "has made a to limit air toxics emissions. These stan- good faith start" in assessing the residudards set what is termed the "maximum al risks from secondary lead smelting. achievable control technology," or MACT, However, the letter cited "significant for dozens of different industry sectors scientific problems that raise serious that release hazardous air pollutants. concerns about the potential for the Industrial operations that must comply Residual Risk Program, as currently with MACT standards include production conceived, to successfully achieve its of inorganic chemicals, organic chemicals, goals." For industry sectors with much pharmaceuticals, polymers and resins, less emissions data than exist for secondary lead smelting, the scientific fibers, and pesticides. According to Robert Brenner, EPA's problems "will prove to be even more inprincipal deputy assistant administrator tractable," SAB's letter said. for air and radiation, "MACT standards "It is not clear that scientific analysis issued to date will reduce annual emis- will be able to generate the type of inforsions of air toxics by 1.5 million tons— mation envisioned" in the 1990 amendmany times the reductions achieved by ments to the Clean Air Act, according to [air pollution] standards issued during the letter. "While decisions can be made the 1970-90 period." in the absence of such scientific inforHaving issued more than 20 MACT mation, they will not be sufficiently prerules, EPA is nearly finished with estab- cise for the intended purpose." The SAB letter recommended that lishing technology-based standards. Now, another part of the amended Clean EPA and Congress "seriously reconsider" the mandate for regulation of residuAir Act is about to kick in for air toxics.
about ORD's employees. "It's wonderful to be in an or2000* 1999* 2001 Simmons ganization where pretty much univerAir pollution $ 93.45 $ 87.34 $ 91.22 sally people get up in 85.84 85.80 Clean water 75.89 the morning and Pesticides 8.10 10.49 6.36 they come to work Pollution prevention, 18.23 14.18 16.65 reducing risk and they're doing 47.72 60.54 Waste management, cleanup 54.01 that because they 22.73 15.97 Climate change 20.59 love what they do. Right-to-know 5.28 5.89 11.66 And they're commitRisk assessment, new 247.86 258.51 276.15 ted," Noonan says. technologies "I daresay there's a TOTAL $554.20 $536.28 $529.98 bunch of corporations in this world Note: Fecal years, a Enacted budget b Operating budget c President*s budget request Source: Environmental Protection Agency that would probably kill for such commitment and such dedideal with national problems on a nation- cation to the mission and the vision of the organization. I think EPA generally al scale." Noonan is unabashedly enthusiastic is blessed in that regard."^
EPA's research budget is falling
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Program To Control Hazardous Air Pollutants Faces New Challenges Problems are lurking around the bend for the Environmental Protection Agency program that controls toxic air pollutants. This program is shifting from the use of technology-based standards for controlling emissions to using risk-based standards. In other words, EPA will no longer set emission levels based on the reductions possible with pollution control equipment. Instead, the agency will establish allowable emission levels for hazardous air pollutants based on the risk they pose to people and the environment As EPA makes this move, the chemical industry is concerned the agency will use scientific methods that aren't peer reviewed and that EPA lacks needed risk and emissions data. An environmental group fears that EPA will wind up unable to tighten controls on air toxics because of uncertainties in the risk assessments. And EPA's Science Advisory Board (SAB) says the section of the Clean Air Act that requiresrisk-basedstandards for air toxics might be "impossible to carry out in a credible manner." Members of Congress, industry and environmental representatives, and SAB are worried that EPA will miss statutory deadlines for setting therisk-basedregulations and will wind up facing lawsuits, meaning a federal court would oversee the establishment of stricter standards for toxic air pollutants. 30
OCTOBER 30,2000 C&EN
