ES&T CURRENTS
INTERNATIONAL Transition to alcohol and other biofuel "will prove possible for Brazil, on balance," predicts Robert Goodrich of the Southern Research Institute (Birmingham, Ala.)· But it will be "a slow, costly, arduous process," he warned. However, without its "Proâlcool" program, Brazil would have perhaps only 67% of its necessary transportation fuel, for example. "Proâlcool" provides loans at advantageous interest rates to help recover agricultural and distillery projects costs. Whether that would work in more developed countries, Goodrich does not judge. There is also a new program, "Prooleo," aimed at making substitute fuels for diesel vehicles.
Kates: did CFC survey The national responses of six countries to the chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) problem were surveyed and a wide range of responses were found. Robert W. Kates and Thomas E. Downing of Clark University, Worcester, Mass., conducted the survey. They found that Sweden and the U.S. were quick to control CFCs; the U.K. and France have been slow; and West Germany and the Netherlands fall somewhere in between. These six countries produce 75% of the world's CFCs. Kates and Downing believe that environmental attitudes, approaches to decision making, and the economics of produc-
tion can account for the range of responses.
WASHINGTON
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EPA Administrator Anne M. Gorsuch is reported to have plans to firebetween 800 and 1500 headquarters staff beginning in March in order to cut the total headquarters staff to between 2085 and 2785 by June 30, 1982, down from the equivalent of 5298 employees when President Reagan came into office. One-half to two-thirds of the reduction would be accomplished by squeezing present employees out of their jobs. Under Civil Service rules, for every person fired, 1.5 people are downgraded, shifted to temporary status, or shifted involuntarily to a different, usually less desirable job. In addition, the EPA staff is quitting at a rate of 32% a year. By June 1982, it is estimated that about 80% of EPA's headquarters staff will have been driven out, fired, or demoted. Because of the high attrition rate, there is no need to fire any employees in 1982 to be at or below this year's employment ceiling. The firings in 1982 will bring the number of employees down to the low levels of the proposed 1983 budget. Administration officials justify the reduction in staff on the grounds of "management efficiencies" or "reorganizations." Firing civil servants in 1982 to accommodate a 1983 budget not'yet submitted to Congress is illegal. The White House has formed a cabinet-level work group to look at the issue of acid rain and provide advice to the Cabinet Council on Resources and Environment. The work group will keep abreast of acid rain research and evaluate new information to determine whether it sheds new light on the administration position. Some observers felt the work group was
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formed because the administration realizes that the acid rain issue is a serious one and because of the possibility that acid rain-control legislation may be passed by the Senate. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) launched a review of the policy it uses to decide whether a workplace chemical may cause cancer. The agency will also look at the methods it employs to determine which potential carcinogens should be reviewed first and the means used to protect workers from them. Present policy says that chemicals shown to cause cancer in one kind of animal should always be listed as potential human carcinogens. Rejecting the idea of a threshold level, it also states that any dose of a potential carcinogen should be considered dangerous. James Foster, an OSHA spokesman, said no changes were proposed in nine existing or proposed OSHA standards regulating exposure to such chemicals as lead, arsenic, and asbestos. The current policy reconsiderations are designed to incorporate such new developments as the Supreme Court's benzene decision. An Office of Technology Assessment staff paper on long-range transport of air pollutants has concluded that acid rain-control decisions made in the immediate future probably will have to be based on subjective regional perceptions of risks and cost of control rather than hard information on effects. The staff paper does not make policy recommendations, but notes that "both the costs of potential damages and the costs of controls have been estimated to be in the range of billions of dollars annually." The paper suggests that postponing controls may result in increased resource damage that may take "years to recover [from] after pollution is reduced." It estimates the annual costs of acid deposition Environ. Sci. Technol., Vol. 16, No. 3, 1982
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