GOVERNMENT
Science Agencies Uneasy as Deadlines Loom to Slash Advisory Committees • Heart of NIH's peer review system is vulnerable; NSF has already killed advisory committee for chemistry resident Bill Clinton's executive order 12838 didn't command a lot of attention when it was issued in the early weeks of his Administration. The order directs federal departments and agencies to terminate at least one third of their advisory committees by Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 1993. Its aim is to save a sizable chunk of the $150 million or so per year the government has been spending on advisory panels. Most press accounts dryly cited the order's effect on committees that might never be missed—such as the Department of Agriculture's National Commission on Wildfire Disasters. But to the agencies whose missions are to fund scientific research, the executive order is no joke. At the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the committees that review applications for more than $5 billion a year in grants are subject to termination under the order. The agency has asked for an exemption and is anxiously awaiting the outcome of negotiations with the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB). At the National Science Foundation (NSF), committees that review proposals have been saved by sacrificing those whose purpose was to provide input to and feedback from the scientific community. The foundation is working to strengthen alternative avenues of communication, but the soon-to-be-defunct advisory committees will be sorely missed. About half of the 325 advisory committees the Department of
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Health & Human Services (HHS) sponsored in fiscal 1992 were NIH panels composed of outside scientists—socalled initial review groups—that judge the scientific merit of grant proposals. Most investigator-initiated applications are reviewed by one of 83 "study sections" that consist of experts in particular fields of research. Other review committees, administered by the individual NIH institutes or centers, judge other types of proposals. "Our peer review committees are all technically advisory committees," notes Marvin Cassman, acting director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, the largest source of chemistry research funding at NIH. "You can make reasonable arguments about the need to make cutbacks, but peer review is the guts of our whole business." Each study section has 16 to 18 members who convene for three three-day meetings each year at NIH's Bethesda, Md., campus. The agency pays travel expenses, a per diem, and an honorarium of $150 per day for each committee member. The reviewers receive no compensation for the long hours they spend reviewing applications in preparation for each meeting. In April, the advisory committee to NIH's division of research grants (which
organizes the study sections and processes all grant proposals) recommended that NIH's initial review groups should be exempt from Clinton's executive order to cut them by one third. "Such a reduction would lead to an unworkable load on the remaining review groups and prevent their effective operation/' the group said. NIH as a whole appealed to HHS Secretary Donna E. Shalala, who agreed NIH should petition OMB for an exemption, according to Donald H. Luecke, deputy director of the division of research grants. OMB responded that it recognized the importance of peer review, but did not agree to let the agency go ahead with business as usual. Exactly what accommodations NIH will be forced to make is not yet clear. Both OMB and NIH officials are reluctant to discuss their ongoing negotiations, saying only that nothing concrete has been decided. OMB expects to announce its final policy on Oct. 1. The situation is somewhat different, but no less painful at NSF, where not all grant applications are reviewed by advisory committees. In the chemistry division, for example, most proposals are mailed to outside experts. But certain applications, such as those for postdoctoral fellowships, are reviewed by advisory panels covered by the executive order. Those peer review panels are HHS sponsors almost 30% of lumped together under one umfederal advisory committees brella group known as the Special Emphasis Panel in Chemistry, Actual Estimated Number of cost, 1992 cost, 1993 which NSF says will continue to committees, 1992 ($ millions) Agency function. But, like the other divisions within NSF's Mathematical & Health & Human 325 $ 59.2 $ 67.7 Physical Sciences Directorate, Services 95 9.0 8.1 National Science chemistry has been forced to disFoundation band its long-standing advisory 721 78.1 80.2 All other federal committee as of Sept. 30. The Advidepartments sory Committee for Chemistry, and agencies which met twice a year to discuss 1141 $146.3 $156.0 TOTAL issues and policies with the diviNote: Figures for fiscal years. Source: General Services Administration sion staff, held what has turned out to be its last meeting in April.
"The committee brought a perspective to the foundation that reflected a wide variety of opinions within chemistry," says Slayton A. Evans, professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the group's last chairman. "We tried to help NSF recognize and stimulate important trends in chemistry, beyond the classical sectors of chemistry." Evans notes that the committee's discussions often went beyond pure research to important issues such as undergraduate education and the need to encourage women and minorities in science. He cites as particularly useful a session last fall in which representatives from industry joined the group for a discussion of relations between industry and academia (C&EN, Nov. 16,1992, page 14). Advisory committee member Ronald Caple, professor of chemistry at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, notes that the panel members have served important roles as liaisons to the academic community. "I've gotten lots of questions from colleagues about the everyday operation of NSF," he says.
"On the committee, you learn how well organized NSF is and you lose the outsider's suspicion of bureaucrats." NSF's chemistry division is searching for other ways to maintain a window on the chemistry community. "We as a division are going to make a number of efforts to make sure we stay in touch," said Kenneth G. Hancock, who was director of the chemistry division until his sudden death Sept. 10 (see page 8). "We can use the existing special emphasis review panels to obtain advice. We will hold open meetings at American Chemical Society meetings and other forums. There may be other innovative things we can do." In addition, William Harris, NSF assistant director for mathematical and physical sciences, says some of the functions of the division's advisory committees can be taken up by the directorate-wide advisory committee, which will not be terminated and which is expanding from 12 to 15 members. Ad hoc subcommittees, which will be disciplinarily based, will be established this month, he says. Pamela Zurer
Superfund progress, future challenges detailed The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has removed or controlled significant amounts of hazardous waste from a number of sites around the country, a General Accounting Office (GAO) official told the Senate Environment Subcommittee on Superfund, Recycling & Solid Waste Management, which is working toward a 1994 revision of the law. But, he said, the agency is facing enormous challenges, resource demands, and questions about the best approach to clean up the hundreds of remaining sites. As detailed earlier this month by Peter F. Guerrero, GAO associate director for environmental protection issues, EPA has placed nearly 1300 hazardous waste sites with the most serious problems on a National Priorities List (NPL). By the end of fiscal 1992, EPA had completed cleanup work and removed from the list 40 sites that it believes have been cleaned to a level protective of human health and the environment; had conducted 3244 emergency removals at NPL and non-NPL sites; had cleanup technologies in place, that is, construction was completed, at 109 NPL sites; and had begun conducting cleanup work at 374 sites. As of Aug. 19, EPA re-
ported 126 construction-complete and 51 deleted sites. However, Guerrero pointed out, the challenges remaining are daunting. "A central issue," he said, "is how EPA defines protection of human health and the environment at sites and how it sets site cleanup standards." One approach to resolution of the "how clean is clean" issue is for EPA to set uniform national standards for acceptable residual levels of contaminants at Superfund sites. These standards could incorporate different levels of cleanup for different types of land use, such as residential or industrial. Such standards could reduce the time it takes to study individual sites and increase consistency, Guerrero said. However, he added, because of the lack of scientific data and criteria for the hundreds of contaminants present in sites, developing such standards would require enormous resources and may not be feasible because of site-specific differences in soil characteristics, hydrogeology, and other factors. Another standardized approach is to clean up each site by choosing the best technology available to address the site's
contamination, as EPA has mandated to limit air and water pollution. However, the multiple contaminants and means of exposure to them at most Superfund sites make this approach almost impossible to apply, Guerrero said. Not only are such technologies costly, but EPA lacks suitable criteria for selecting them, and the whole concept has a built-in bias that favors existing technologies. A third approach—relying on sitespecific risk assessments—would not resolve problems the agency has already encountered. Opinion is sharply divided as to whether the agency's current risk assessments are too conservative or not conservative enough, Guerrero pointed out. Extending the use of risk assessment would not settle differences of opinion about interpretation of scientific data needed for risk assessments, the models and assumptions that should be used, or the uncertainties involved in the process. The fourth and final approach involves treating the most immediate and significant threats at a site on a site-by-site basis and delaying additional treatments until key standards and technologies are developed. Under this approach, EPA could significantly reduce the most immediate hazards at many sites and direct resources toward research on standards and technologies. Although this approach would mitigate immediate risks, it would allow other site problems to remain for extended periods of time in a program already under criticism for the slow pace of cleanup. Nevertheless, Guerrero said this approach would contain wastes and control risks for the time needed to determine appropriate cleanup standards and to develop and test appropriate technologies. In addition, Guerrero suggested that the subcommittee might want to look into requiring EPA to alter the way it reports its achievements under the Superfund program. The agency, he said, does not differentiate between sites that have been cleaned to a level protective of human health and the environment and those that require ongoing activities to reach their cleanup objectives. Furthermore, EPA has reported as construction-complete, or deleted, 23 sites at which no removal or remedial actions were undertaken. As a result, he said, EPA may have overstated its cleanup accomplishments. Janice Long SEPTEMBER 20,1993 C&EN
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