empt from OSHA's policy of subjecting all businesses to random inspection. Bond contends that many fines imposed by OSHA seem to be aimed at raising money for the agency rather than improving safety. Legislation imposing a six-month moratorium on all new regulations issued since Nov. 8 has been introduced in both branches of Congress. All task force members favor the moratorium. They say the number of regulations has skyrocketed during the past few years and that many of them are unnecessary. They claim 4,300 regulations and notices have been issued in the Federal Register since Nov. 8. However, Nickles says the Administration has scheduled Hutchison: regulations too burdensome only 872 rules for publication in the Federal Register between October 1994 The task force also intends to pro- and Aprin995. Nickles has drafted a bill that would pose amendments to Superfund legislation that will ensure resources are require a 45-day layover period for used to clean up sites, rather than pay "significant new final regulations," for litigation, Bond says. And the task during which Congress would review force wants to eliminate retroactive lia- them, with the power to reject them. bility and lender liability in the Super- "Significant regulations" are defined as those that would cost governments and fund legislation. Another task force member, Sen. Don the private sector $100 million or more Nickles (R-Okla.), says many of the 80 annually. contaminants that must be controlled The task force will hold hearings under the Safe Drinking Water Act have around the U.S. this summer to get innot been determined to be hazardous to put from the business and labor comhealth. He wants risk analysis to be re- munities on needed changes in regulaquired for each of these contaminants in tions and legislation. "We are not goany reauthorization of the act. ing to step away from a mission of In the occupational safety and health clean air and clean water," says Hutcharea, Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), a ison. But "we are going to put some task force member, believes that busi- common sense boundaries around nesses that have above-average safety these regulations." records for three years should be exBette H He man
Europeans hail chemical society formation The European Chemical Society (ECS) was launched in Belgium last week following an initiative by young chemists in Europe. The new society aims to promote European chemistry and provide a single voice for European chemists. Although just formed, ECS plans a number of ambitious activities. They include organizing European chemistry symposia, circulating an Englishlanguage newsletter, and publishing a directory of European chemists. ECS will be open to individual and group membership. Formation of the society is welcomed by Albert E. Fischli, vice president of the
International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry. "I hope very much that the new society will be successful in recruiting a representative number of chemists," he tells C&EN. "A lot will depend on scientists getting actively involved." The final decision to create ECS was made at a meeting in Rocamadour, France, last year, held under the auspices of the European Union (EU). But the initiative for the society arose from a Young Chemists Symposium in 1993 held in Ghent, Belgium. "It started from the base and not from the top," says Jean-Marie Lehn, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry in 1987, who has agreed to be honorary ECS president.
The societv is the result oi a spontaneous movement bv voung chemists, he explains. "It has not come out oi an established institution." Lehn is professor oi chemistrv at College de France, Paris, and a director at the Institut Le Bel, Louis Pasteur University, Strasbourg. The ECS secretariat is located at the department of chemistry at Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. Dav-to-dav activities will be managed bv an administrative committee consisting of 13 scientists from 10 European countries. This committee is chaired by Istvan E. Marko, a chemistry professor at Louvain. ECS is being established as an international society under Belgian law, Marko explains. It will be funded bv member dues, which will be kept as low as possible. "We also hope that companies will sponsor the societv." He adds, "The European Union mav also give us some funding." An ECS statement last week emphasizes that increasing contacts among European chemists—supported in particular by the EU's Fourth Framework Program for Research & Technological Development—have raised the need for a single representative bodv. The statement lists as one of ECS's aims "attaining full recognition oi chemistrv by the European Union." "There is virtuallv nothing in the Fourth Framework Program for chemistry," Marko savs. "The word chemistry does not even appear as far as 1 am aware." Heindirk torn Dieck, secretarv general of the German Chemical Societv (GDCh), expresses personal support for the new society and says it maxwell contribute to a greater European spirit. However, he points out, C.DCh's board of directors is more cautious. One problem is dues collection. Transferring small amounts oi monev across frontiers is prohibitively expensive, he explains. Success oi the societv mav therefore depend on national chemical societies cooperating with ECS to earnout administrative activities. Lehn, Marko, and torn Dieck all stress that ECS's formation is completely unrelated to the launch bv VCH Publishers and GDCh of Chemistry—A European journal, whose first issue will be distributed with Angemindte Chemie in April (C&EN, Oct. 3J, 1994, page 13). Lehn is founding chairman of the new journal's editorial board. Michael Frcemantle |A\IARY30, lWC&l-:\
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