The spate of environmental legislation in the 1970s has created the need for a synthesis of what has been done, how well the programs are working, and what can be done to improve them. Such a synthesis appears in the new RFF study, Current Issues in U.S. Environmental Policy.
The following is excerpted and adapted from a chapter entitled "Toxic Substance Policy and the Protection of Human Health," by Paul R. Portney, who is also the editor of the volume.
Mankind's acute, or immediate, vulnerability to certain substances is a matter of historical record. We know, for example, that Socrates died of hemlock poisoning and that the Borgias routinely dispatched their enemies with lethal mixtures. Such acute effects arise from accidental exposures to less well-known "poisons," as well. For example, more than 4,000 citizens of London died from an extended period of severe air pollution there in 1952. Fortunately, our knowledge of these acute effects continues to grow. Recent studies have linked temporal variations in air pollution within a metropolitan area to acute ophthalmological and other health problems.
However, our knowledge of the chronic, or long-term, adverse effects of exposures to toxic substances is much less well developed. This is not at all difficult to explain. Latency and uncertainty make chronic toxic substances difficult to recognize and control. By latency we mean the period between exposure to a toxic substance and the manifestation of its effect. By uncertainty we mean our imperfect knowledge of the identity of toxic substances and the way in which they eventually affect health.
In fundamental ways toxic substances often differ from traditional air and water pollutants, and their effects are sufficiently severe to warrant additional discussion. A number of these substances do not imperil their victims through the air and water to which we are all exposed but rather through occupational or voluntary exposures. For this reason, too, the subject of chronically toxic substances merits separate attention.
Two factors account for the increased attention being given toxic substances by Congress and federal administrative agencies. The first is the sheer volume of publicity such substances now receive. The current controversy surrounding the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) proposed saccharin ban is an example. Similar publicity was accorded the discovery that the pesticide Kepone was highly toxic not only to employees of the plant where it was produced but also to nearby residents and those eating fish from the river into which Kepone was discharged along with other municipal wastes. Somewhat less recent were the revelations about the carcinogenic effects of vinyl chloride on industrial workers, as well as the mercury poisoning suffered by the residents of Minamata, the Japanese fishing village.
It is doubtful that toxic substances generally would receive such publicity were it not that many are linked to cancer, a disease that Americans not unreasonably have come to fear more than any other. Although heredity and viruses are thought to be responsible for some cancers, between 60 and 90 percent of all cancers are now believed to be caused by environmental factors, broadly defined. For example, recent studies have found the variation in cancer death rates correlated with pork and beef consumption, cigarette smoking, atmospheric concentrations of ammonium, beta and ultraviolet radiation, and other factors. Cancer mortality rates in U.S. counties have been found to be correlated with the location of petroleum refineries, as well.
Moreover, the incidence of cancer within a single metropolitan area has been found to vary significantly with the source of municipal drinking water. That is, even after filtration, the drinking water of certain New Orleans residents that originates in the Mississippi River and the drinking water of certain Cincinnati residents that originates in the Ohio River have been linked to several types of cancer. In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed that all systems serving more than 75,000 people use carbon filtration.
Of the 2 million known chemical compounds, 30,000 of which are in substantial use, a growing number have been identified as carcinogens and as many as 1,000 others are suspected of being so. The former include such familiar compounds as asbestos, arsenic, benzene, chlorine, chloroform, vinyl chloride, and coal tar. In addition, the flame retardant Tris (2,3-dibromopropyl) phosphate, used to treat children's sleepwear, was recently banned by the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the garments ordered recalled from retail outlets because Tris was found to induce cancer in laboratory test animals. On still another front, the Food and Drug Administration is seeking to limit the concentrations of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) found in diary products, poultry, eggs, and fish. The FDA ban on saccharin was proposed because of that additive's carcinogenic effect on laboratory animals in Canadian experiments.
In addition to the dangers posed by these and many other substances, certain modern technologies carry with them great health risks. For example, the dispersal of freon and other aerosol propellants by spray cans of deodorant, paint, hair conditioners, and disinfectants has been shown to deplete the ozone layer of our atmosphere. If the depletion is sufficiently severe, climatological changes could cause crop and vegetation loss and increased incidences of skin cancer brought about by more direct exposure to solar radiation. High-altitude flight resulting in emissions of oxides of nitrogen can also cause ozone depletion.
Designing policies to respond to the threat posed by toxic substances is not easy. In fact, it may be the single most difficult environmental problem we have yet faced. This is so not only because of the considerable uncertainty about the identity of toxic substances and the ways in which they do their great damage or because of the long latency periods often associated with exposures to them. These problems are also difficult because their solution may require alterations—occasionally drastic—in the conditions in which people work, the products they consume, and the technologies they employ in their daily lives. Changes like these are not easily made.
Economic forces sometimes have the potential to alleviate the need for corrective policy when occupations or products are risky. However, the conditions necessary for a market solution to the toxic substance problem cannot be presumed to describe the world as we know it. First, and most importantly, neither workers nor consumers have very good information about the risks that inhere in various jobs or products; second, there may be no alternatives to those jobs or products from which they can choose; third, they may be unable for financial or other reasons to take advantage of alternatives that do exist. The governmental role which is thus necessitated has taken a familiar form—the establishment of standards that in some cases limit and in other cases prohibit exposures to toxic substances. These standards and the other regulatory options available appear in a number of pieces of legislation that together form an umbrella of protection against toxic substances.
One problem with this umbrella is its irregular construction (see table 1). That which it is to protect us against is defined differently in different legislation. Moreover, the protection that the umbrella is designed to offer—what legislators have chosen to call the margin of safety—varies from act to act. Finally, certain sections of the umbrella are to be designed with costs in mind while other sections are to protect us regardless of the expense. Toxic substance policy could be improved if the legislation forming this protective umbrella were made more uniform and amended to provide for protection that depends uniformly on costs as well as benefits.
Testing for the identity and potency of toxic substances poses additional problems. Here we can do little more than recognize the seriousness of the problem and work to commit more funds to testing programs. Equally as important is the dissemination of the information obtained in these tests and its translation into terms readily understandable to those who could benefit from it. It is also important to create proper incentives for private firms to use acceptable test methods and to divulge quickly and completely the results of their tests.
Finally, while we cannot expect free markets to solve on their own the problems associated with toxic substances, we should not rule out the use of economic incentives to help do so. One such incentive, a toxics tax, might reduce individual exposures to toxic substances while information is being generated and disseminated that might induce individuals to minimize their exposures, even in the absence of such incentives. For example, lunchmeats, hot dogs, bacon, and pork sausage are all known to be high in nitrite content, food preservatives which when ingested can form potent carcinogens called nitrosamines. Rather than ban altogether products containing nitrites, or limit its involvement to the dissemination of information about the risks inherent in these products, the government could levy a tax on them not unlike the special excise taxes currently levied on a wide variety of products (some of which—cigarettes and liquor, for example—are taxed for the very reason that they are a "nuisance"). The proceeds of a toxic tax, which might be considerable given the number of products containing potentially harmful substances, might then be used to fund cancer research and treatment, or research on possible substitutes for the toxic additives. Cigarettes, diet sodas, suntan lotion, and other products, the usage of which is demonstrated to be dangerous, would be candidates for this tax.
The tax would have the effect of raising the price of the products in question and thereby discouraging their consumption. It would have another advantage, too. That is, it would allow individuals to choose freely among the many products in the market. If the tax were coupled with a vigorous campaign to inform consumers about the risks associated with certain products, it might be an effective way to limit individual exposures. As individuals become mere informed about product risks and (we would hope) voluntarily reduce their consumption of dangerous products, the tax could be lowered gradually.
This tax would do nothing about occupational exposures, however, which account for a large share of total human exposure to toxic substances. Occupational exposures might be reduced if workmen's compensation claims forced firms to bear at least part of the costs of their employees' job-related illnesses. However, it would be very difficult to link illnesses to specific employers during workers' occupational histories. Hence, workmen's compensation may not be an entirely successful mechanism by which to eliminate occupational exposures. On a related front, more than 400 asbestos workers recently sued both the federal government and PPG Industries and Corning Glass Works for allowing the workers to handle asbestos without informing them of the risks of so doing. The defendants settled out of court for $20 million. If this example induces other workers who have contracted occupational illnesses (like cancer or mercury poisoning) to sue for damages, we can expect industries to clean up their workplaces to some extent even in the absence of Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations or other standards.
Moreover, the government can be expected to provide more and better information to workers, and be more vigilant about enforcing the regulations they have established, if they, too, are liable for damages.
In other words, this apparent reassignation of the liability for occupational illness from employees to employers and the government will act as an economic incentive to the latter: employers will eliminate exposures to toxic substances up to the point at which the cost of doing so exceeds the benefits to be gained (in the form of lower expected court and out-of-court damages). In addition, if employers are more informed about occupational risks than employees, or can obtain this information at a lower cost, this shift in liability may be economically efficient as well as effective in eliminating occupational exposures. The use of such suits in the courts in no way guarantees that the right amount of exposure reduction will take place, however. Excessive damage awards may lead firms to expend more than the socially optimal amount on protective equipment, for example.
A version of this article appeared in print in the April-July 1978 issue of Resources magazine.
