tifîc prospects, but even with these its attitude is conservative. "A valid scientific basis exists for performing certain classes of experiments on materials in space," the committee reports. But the prospects for using space in this way "take the form of incremental advantages over earth-based processes, rather than breakthroughs into new science and technology." The SAB study came in response to a request from NASA to provide guidance for NASA's program. SAB established the ad hoc committee, consisting of members from industry, universities, and national laboratories. In making its study, the committee drew on comments and advice from more than 100 experts in materials science and technology. Space environment factors such as temperature, level of vacuum, or presence of high-energy radiation, the committee says, can be realized better and more easily on earth. It finds that the principal value of the space environment for experiments is low gravitational acceleration for long times. This environment appears to offer a number of opportunities—for example, research on solidification. The committee emphasizes two points: The space environment usually contributes at least as many problems as it solves. And space experimentation will have little value unless its planning is founded on substantial earth-based information and unless the results are coupled to those of complementary terrestrial programs. The committee report, "Materials Processing in Space," is available from SAB, National Research Council, 2101 Constitution Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20418. D
OSHA carcinogen policy termed unrealistic Monsanto chairman John W. Hanley early this month assailed federal plans to control carcinogens in the workplace as "an unrealistic and inflationary approach." The proposal by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration would "promote an epidemic rise in regulatory activity, with consequent adverse economic results," Hanley said at lengthy Labor Department hearings in Washington, D.C., on OSHA's proposed hierarchical scheme to classify and regulate suspected carcinogenic substances used in U.S. industry. Chemical makers and other industries are adamantly opposed to such an approach and claim that it assumes a degree of precision in 8
C&EN July 10, 1978
Hanley: adverse economic results
identifying human carcinogens that does not yet exist. "[OSHA wants] to require American industry to reduce worker exposure to the lowest feasible level without any regard to the cost of that reduction, or more importantly to its
effectiveness in impacting cancer in the American worker," Hanley says. "OSHA has consistently taken the point of view that it doesn't have a legal obligation to calculate the economic effect of these regulations. We think it does," he adds. Hanley says that based on a study conducted for the American Industrial Health Council, an industry group, capital costs for complying with the OSHA proposals could be from $23 billion to $88 billion, and the annual operating costs could be from $11 billion to $36 billion. "These are funds that would not be available to do such things as build new factories and provide new jobs." However, he concedes, "If [the proposed regulations] would do the job, I wouldn't for one second object to the costs . . . but they will not do the job." The Monsanto chief executive ominously predicts that if OSHA's proposals were to be adopted now, "the net result would be a massive jam of the regulatory and judicial system." He notes, too, that a longer-term result of OSHA's current proposals would be to make the U.S. chemical industry less competitive with foreign firms. D
Bank hits EPA rules' higl cost to industry A warning that compliance with the Environmental Protection Agency's regulations on pollution control could halt much investment in new construction scheduled for U.S industry has been sounded by a major U.S. bank. The First National Bank of Chicago, in a recently issued report, takes aim at the "formidable discriminatory authority [of EPA] backed up by a well-crafted web of state dependency on federal funds, and vested in an agency not noted for moderation and balance." EPA's authority cited by the bank derives from the 1977 amendments to the Clean Air Act. The bank notes that failure of a state to submit acceptable plans to EPA for implementation of the 1977 regulations will result in prohibition of any new industrial construction in that state and the threat of federal withholding of funds for highways, pollution control, and sewage treatment. States' plans for compliance must be submitted before next January and accepted by EPA on or before July 1, 1979. In its critique of EPA's authority, the First National Bank of Chicago says that the agency is using legislation that takes double-barreled aim at industry. The first barrel is the requirement for "best technology" emissions controls in new industrial
plants—regardless of proven need— which would, it is alleged, increase dramatically the cost of pollution abatement. The second barrel is the imposition of a "no significant deterioration rule," which means that local air pollution levels must be maintained without significant deterioration, even if they are currently found below federal pollution ceilings. The cost of pollution abatement and control has risen rapidly in recent years, and the bank puts much of the blame directly on EPA, the Occupational Safety & Health Administration, and other agencies, which it says add 0.75% per year to the inflation rate. Federal spending on pollution control for fiscal year 1979 is estimated at $7.4 billion, about 60% of all environmental outlays in the federal budget. But the bank also says that this will be dwarfed by the cost of complying with future federal and state regulations. Between 1972 and 1976, the total expenditure for pollution control (both government and private) rose at an annual rate of 21%—more than twice the rate of the nominal gross national product—and much of that was caused by the rush to meet deadlines specified in the original Clean Air Act. The new amendments threaten to make things even worse, in the bank's view. D
