EPA Seeks To Improve IRIS Program's Output In 2014 But Faces Challenges

摘要

The leaders of EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) are looking to continue to strengthen the influential toxicity hazard assessment program in 2014, including trebling the program's output within the next two or three years and publicly identifying the environmental and health concerns driving the need for the assessments. But Vincent Cogliano, IRIS' acting director, told the Society for Risk Analysis annual meeting in Baltimore Dec. 10 that achieving those goals could prove to be ambitious, though he did not elaborate. "We have some challenges for next year," he said. "We have to increase productivity." In one indication of the difficulties the program faces, agency officials appear to be considering dropping their long-running assessment of the fuel additive ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE). The assessment has been underway since 2004, according to EPA's IRIS Track website.