An EPA for the 21st century

TODAY'S smallest of materials pose a big opportunity and a huge challenge for the Environmental Protection Agency. Nanotechnology is the technology of the very small -- the manipulation of things at the level of individual atoms and molecules, the use of materials that are 1/80,000 th the width of a human hair.

Meeting the oversight challenges of nanotechnology, estimated to represent $2.6 trillion in manufactured goods globally by 2014, requires that the EPA bring itself into the 21st century.

The agency needs to make this leap now -- with the same sense of urgency top Democratic and Republican leaders of Congress's House Science Committee called for last year when they said that the administration was moving too slowly on a research agenda to understand the environmental, health, and safety implications of nanotechnology.

Nanotechnology holds enormous promise for new medical advances-in cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and Parkinson 's disease. Scientists have demonstrated how nanotechnology can be used to restore nerve and spinal cord function. It portends cheap solar energy and water purification on a large scale.

The first generation of nanotechnology products is rapidly coming to market. The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies website lists almost 500 nano consumer products now being sold. This summer you may be lathering up with a nano-based sunscreen or wearing stain and wrinkle resistant pants that have nanomaterials woven into the fabric.

But what do we know about nanotechnology, about its effects on human health and the environment? Not much. What are we doing to get these answers? Not enough. Can the existing regulatory system protect the public from potential problems with nanotechnology? Not adequately.

It is time for the EPA to step into the breach and develop a research and regulatory framework for nanotechnology that helps us achieve its promise while avoiding or greatly minimizing any possible dangers. This won't be easy.

The agency was created 37 years ago to deal with the pollution byproducts of the industrial revolution. It has made great strides in doing that -- the environment is much cleaner today than in 1970, in large part because of the EPA's efforts.

However, 21st-century challenges require different approaches. The new challenges require significantly more scientific research. The EPA must have more scientists trained in assessing risk of nanotechnology. Further, it must improve its ability to apply scientific information to oversight issues.

The new challenges of nanotech and other emerging technologies are international and cannot be solved by the United States alone. The EPA needs a greater capacity to reach out to and cooperate with other countries.

EPA also needs to have all the programs in the agency working together and not try to segment problems by air, water, land, or type of product. To deal with nanotechnology, EPA needs the cooperation of Congress, other agencies, industry, and environmental and consumer groups. Here are the most important steps that EPA needs to take now.

First, the EPA has proposed a voluntary program to collect nanotechnology risk information from industry, researchers, and others. Originally put forward two years ago, the EPA should implement its own recommendations and put the information collection program in place immediately.

Second, at the same time that it starts its voluntary program, the agency should revise the regulations under the Toxic Substances Control Act to explicitly cover nanomaterials. It should also ask Congress to amend the act to allow the EPA to get the health and safety information it needs to evaluate new materials.

Third, research on the effects of nanotechnology on human health and the environment should be greatly increased. Currently, only about 1 to 4 percent of the federal $1.4 billion spent on nano is devoted to research on its effects.

Fourth, because the new technology needs a new type of oversight, EPA should support a dialogue about developing an oversight system that is both more efficient and more effective than the current one -- a dialogue involving consumers, environmental groups, industry, and Congress.

For more than 30 years, the EPA has dealt with the impacts of the industrial revolution -- the internal combustion engine, steam-generated electricity, and basic chemical synthesis. Today, another industrial revolution is occurring. Nanotechnology may be the single most important advance of the 21st century. With its ability to fundamentally change the properties of matter, it demands our attention now, and it provides the EPA with an opportunity to reinvent itself to face the challenges of a future that is already here.

William D. Ruckelshaus, who served as the EPA's first administrator from 1970-1973 and again from 1983-1985, is chairman of the Partnership for Puget Sound . J. Clarence Davies is a senior adviser at the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies and Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future.