Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Determine the main environmental research problems on the US envi-
ronmental-research landscape.
Sustain and continually rejuvenate a diverse inhouse scientific research
staff—with the necessary laboratories and field capabilities—that can support
the agency in its present and future missions and in its active collaboration with
other agencies.
Strike a balance between inhouse and extramural research investment.
The latter can often bring new ideas and methods to the agency, stimulate a flow
of new people into it, and support the continued health of environmental re-
search in the nation.
Those multiple objectives can lead to conflict. For example, ORD re-
sources that are applied to expanding staff and expediting science reviews and
risk assessment in the National Center for Environmental Assessment may di-
vert resources from longer-term program development and research. However,
the agency has shown itself capable of maintaining a longer-term perspective in
several instances, such as the establishment and maintenance of the Science to
Achieve Results (STAR) grant program for extramural research, anticipatory
moves to develop capability in computational toxicology, and the development
and sustained implementation of multiyear research plans, for example, for re-
search on airborne particulate matter (now the Air Quality, Climate, and Energy
multiyear plan). In each of those cases, EPA identified ways both to give longer-
term goals higher priority and to identify and commit resources to them. How-
ever, the tension between the near-term and longer-term science goals for the
agency is likely to increase as more and more contentious rules are brought for-
ward and as continuing budget pressures constrain and reduce science resources
overall.
In light of the inherent tension, the emerging environmental issues and
challenges identified in Chapter 2, and the emerging science and technologies
described in Chapter 3, this chapter attempts to identify key strategies for build-
ing science for environmental protection in the 21st century in EPA and beyond.
Specifically, the chapter lays out a path for EPA to retain and expand its leader-
ship in science and engineering by
establishing a 21st century framework that
embraces systems thinking to produce science to inform decisions. That path
includes staying at the leading edge by engaging in science that anticipates, in-
novates, is long term, and is collaborative; using enhanced systems-analysis
tools and expertise; and using synthesis research to support decisions. In sup-
porting environmental science and engineering for the 21st century, EPA will
need to continue to evolve from an agency that focuses on using science to char-
acterize risks so that it can respond to problems to an agency that applies science
to anticipate and characterize both problems and solutions at the earliest point
possible. Anticipating and characterizing problems and solutions should opti-
mize social, economic, and environmental factors.
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