GOVERNMENT CONCENTRATES Four glycol ethers determined hazardous OSHA has made a preliminary determination that occupational exposure to four glycol ethers—2methoxyethanol, 2-ethoxyethanol, and their acetates— poses a significant risk to workers that can be prevented or reduced through workplace regulation. EPA, which formally referred the substances to OSHA for action last May under the Toxic Substances Control Act, estimates that 200,000 to 350,000 workers are exposed to potentially unsafe levels of the chemicals. According to OSHA, glycol ethers can cause adverse health effects in several animal species, including testicular damage, reduced fertility, maternal toxicity, developmental abnormalities of the fetus, depression of bone marrow and the immune system, and neurotoxicity. Epidemiologic studies and clinical reports have shown similar effects in humans. OSHA says that a revised workplace standard for the substances appears economically and technically feasible and that it is examining its options. Current exposure limits, averaged over eight hours, are 25 ppm for 2-methoxyethanol and its acetate, 200 ppm for 2-ethoxyethanol, and 100 ppm for 2-ethoxyethanol acetate.
host institution. Other grants will involve supplements to ongoing NSF research grants or contract awards to provide research training opportunities for one or two undergraduates. The program coordinators for fiscal 1987 are, for chemistry: William C. Harris (202) 357-9826; materials research: Robert J. Reynik (202) 367-9789; and computer and information science and engineering: Roland Radloff (202) 357-9880.
IRS forced to cancel projects Because of the press of business associated with the Tax Reform Act of 1986, the Internal Revenue Service says it is ceasing work on 133 regulatory projects. Among the issues that were being addressed by the terminated projects are: clarifying the definition of property that is a pollution control facility; clarifying the definition of property that is a solid-wastedisposal facility; charitable contributions of scientific property used for research; tax benefit rules relating to the corporate add-on m i n i m u m tax; tax consequences of refunding industrial development bonds to the issuer, bondholder, and industrial user; and defining the term "facility."
Supreme Court acts on several issues
U.S., Canada sign research agreement
The Supreme Court last week heard arguments on a 1981 Louisiana law that required that equal time be given to the teaching of evolution and creation science. A federal judge struck down the law, without a trial, on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment's separation of church and state requirement. That decision was twice upheld by a federal appeals court. The Supreme Court is expected to make its decision by July 1987. In other action, the court told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit to reconsider a 1985 decision in light of recently enacted amendments to the Superfund law. The court had said that EPA could not conduct a survey or do preliminary work at the Outboard Marine Corp. site in Waukegan Harbor, Ill-considered the state's worst hazardous-waste site—without the owner's permission, because there was no emergency involved. The new amendments specifically allow such access. And the court ruled six to two that a company could not challenge the merger of two competitors on the g r o u n d s that it would lead to increased price competition.
Energy Secretary John S. Herrington and Canadian Minister of Energy, Mines & Resources Marcel Masse have signed a major agreement establishing a wide-ranging program of cooperative energy R&D. The research will focus on such areas as energy conservation and efficiency, renewable energy technologies, alternative transportation fuels, and environmental protection and health research relating to energy technologies. The agreement is the latest in a long line of similar pacts. For instance, DOE currently has 116 bilateral international energy agreements with 23 countries. Nine of the agreements, DOE says, focus on a broad range of energy R&D, and 13 provide for the exchange of personnel and information. The rest focus on specific energy technologies, such as fusion and radioactive-waste management.
NSF boosts undergraduate research NSF has announced a new $9 million program that will give about 2000 undergraduate students opportunities to participate in science and engineering research. NSF says that awards under the program, titled Research Experiences for Undergraduates, will typically fit into two categories. Some grants will be made to initiate and support undergraduate research participation sites, usually involving at least eight students of whom half will come from outside the
Washington roundup • EPA has available for public review and comment a draft "Guidelines for Ground-Water Classification under the EPA Ground-Water Protection Strategy." Single copies of the 400-page document can be obtained from EPA, Office of Groundwater Protection (WH-550G), 401 M St., S.W., Washington, D.C.20460. • NOAA scientists have found that Arctic air is sometimes more polluted than air moving out over the Atlantic Ocean from eastern industrial cities. One pollution plume encountered in the Arctic was equivalent to five or six large power plants putting all their effluents in a single plume, the scientists say. December 15,1986 C&EN
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