Indoor pollution : status of federal research activities : report to the Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Government Reform, House of Representatives / United States General Accounting Office.
- United States. General Accounting Office
- Date:
- [1999]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Indoor pollution : status of federal research activities : report to the Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Government Reform, House of Representatives / United States General Accounting Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![Chapter 1 Introduction Objectives, Scope, and Methodology problems whose risks are greater and initiate actions to educate the public about relative environmental risks. This report responds to a request from the Ranking Minority Member, House Committee on Government Reform, for GAO to assess the progress made by EPA and other federal agencies in enhancing the understanding of the public health risks posed by pollutants present in the indoor environment and in developing solutions for controlling or mitigating them. Specifically, we were asked to (1) characterize the current scientific understanding of the health risks of pollutants commonly encountered in indoor environments and the sources of exposures to them; (2) provide information on the federal funding of indoor pollution-related research in recent years and on the advances in understanding of the nature of the problem and the ability to contro] it that have resulted from this spending; and (3) identify significant gaps in knowledge and understanding of the problem, the solutions for dealing with it, and the implications of these gaps for future research. To address these objectives, we undertook an extensive review of the published scientific literature on indoor environmental pollution as well as such key related topics as exposure assessment and risk assessment. We also reviewed EPaA’s public and internal documents dealing with these subjects, including reports to the Congress, guidance documents intended to disseminate knowledge obtained through research activities, and a variety of internal reports and memoranda dealing with strategic planning, staff assessment of research needs, and proposed plans to address these needs. To identify federal agencies for inclusion in our review, we drew on the knowledge gained from prior work in this area and reviewed EPA’s documents and proceedings of the interagency CIAQ, the interagency advisory and coordinating body relied upon to meet the requirements of the 1986 Superfund amendments. We also attended quarterly meetings of the Committee. In our review, we included those agencies with the greatest stake in research related to indoor pollution, either as participants in or sponsors of such research or as major users of its results. These agencies are the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Energy (DOE), the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Consumer Product Safety Commission (cPsc), the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIosH), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b3223059x_0025.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
