Comparing Environmental Risks

by J. Clarence Davies

The budgetary squeeze occurring at all levels of government in the 1990s has made it obvious that the nation cannot address every existing and prospective environmental problem. Criticism of current programs focuses especially on the low levels of risk posed by many of the problems being subjected to regulation while more important problems may go unaddressed. Comparative risk assessment is increasingly advanced as the appropriate means for setting realistic priorities. Comparing Environmental Risks: Tools for Setting Government Priorities illuminates the increased efforts of the executive branch of the federal government to use risk assessment in its decisionmaking. While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pioneered the use of comparative risk assessment (CRA) in its programs and routinely uses risk assessments of individual pollutants, the agency has not made use of CRA throughout the full range of its activities. Nor has any other federal agency. The President's Office of Scie