Enhanced Scientific Leadership and Capacity in the US Environmental Protection Agency - Science For Environmental Protection: The Road Ahead - page 147

5
Enhanced Scientific
Leadership and Capacity in the
US Environmental Protection Agency
Previous chapters, particularly Chapter 4, outline the need for an enhanced
approach to science and technology in the US Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) that recognizes the challenge of characterizing and preventing effects on
human health and ecosystems in the context of complex systems. With the de-
velopment of new tools and approaches to collecting and processing large
amounts of environmental and health data and for characterizing effects when
knowledge is uncertain, it is imperative that a new way of thinking—embodied
in the concepts of science that anticipates, innovates, takes the long view, and is
collaborative—be integrated into scientific processes in EPA's Office of Re-
search and Development (ORD) and across its national research program areas.
In the United States, environmental management is conducted through a
mosaic of federal, state, and local activities in multiple federal and state agen-
cies, often through regionally distributed offices. Environmental decisions are
made at multiple administrative levels in those agencies. Science questions arise
throughout that environmental-management network and require access to the
latest and best scientific information possible. In EPA's program and regional
offices, science is most often conducted in direct response to particular regula-
tory and programmatic needs and often operates on different timescales in con-
trast with longer-term discovery-oriented science in ORD. Efforts to enhance
EPA science for the 21st century should not focus only on ORD but should in-
corporate efforts, resources, expertise, and scientific and non-scientific perspec-
tives in program and field offices. Such efforts need to support the integration of
both existing and new science throughout the agency; avoid duplication or,
worse, contradictory actions; respect different sets of priorities and timeframes;
and advance common goals. EPA also engages in activities to deliver science
and provide decision support to nonfederal entities (for example, states and
tribes), and decreasing budgets of tribal, state, and local environmental agencies
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