Underwater Drugstore

the CENR prepared preliminary strategies for establishing scientific approaches and short-term priorities for seven programmatic and three cross-cutting issue areas in which to address the administration's concerns about federal R&D efforts. The programmatic issues include air quality, biodiversity and ecosystems, global change, natural disasters, resource use and management, toxic substances and hazardous and solid waste, and water resources, coastal, and marine environmental research. The three cross-cutting issues are risk assessment, social and economic sciences, and technology and engineering. The areas outlined in the preliminary strategic plans will provide the structure for addressing key weaknesses in federal R&D that have been raised in a number of reports over the last two years, including program integration, interagency cooperation, links to the policy formulation process, partnerships with industry and academia, research approaches that address long-term scientific issues as well as shortterm management and regulatory requirements, need for expanded federal efforts in the biological and social sciences, and human resource development. Some of the key administration officials who took part in the forum are John Gibbons, assistant to the president for science and technology; Vice President Al Gore; Secretary of Interior Bruce Babbitt; Robert T. Watson, associate director for environment of OSTP; D. James Baker, under secretary for oceans and atmosphere of the Department of Commerce; EPA Administrator Carol Browner; and Kathleen McGinty, director of the White House Office of Environmental Policy. Interagency cooperation, sustainable development, and effective integration of science and policy were major themes throughout the addresses given during the forum. Browner offered three suggestions to guide the federal research agenda. First, move away from basing regulations on risks to the average person to protecting those populations who are most at risk, including children, minorities, pregnant women, and the elderly. Second, use an ecosystem approach that recognizes the integration of natural resources; for example, air pollution in water that is eventually consumed by animals and humans. Finally, incorporate industrial incentives for preventing pollution and reducing consumption, rather than devoting increasing resources to the development of better waste disposal technologies. At the forum, strategic plans in each of the 10 areas were reviewed and finalized. These documents will form the rationale for selecting high-priority research areas for inclusion in budget requests for fiscal year 1996.