NEWS OF THE WEEK

take this position. 'The Supreme Couifs decision indicates that the proceedings taken by the 2nd Court of Appeals and the U.S. district court were conducted properly/' says Dow spokesman Scot Wheeler. 'Those two courts had deter­mined that the veterans filing this suit were part of the original 1984 settlement. It effectively ends the matter as far as lit­igation is concerned."

All seven companies were named in the original agent orange class action lawsuit brought in 1979. Agent orange was used in Vietnam to clear brush and trees that provided cover to the enemy. It was contaminated with small amounts (2 ppm average) of 2,3,7,8-tetrachloro-dibenzo-p-dioxin, which is at the center of the health controversy. During the 1970s, Vietnam veterans with a variety of illnesses began to blame their medi­cal problems on agent orange exposure (see page 31).

Under the 1984 settlement, the manu­facturers contributed $180 million to a claim payment fund. So far, more than $164 million has been distributed to vet­erans and their survivors. More than 60,000 claims have been processed; the

claims paid average about $3,500 each. However, in what may have been a unique provision for a liability settle­ment at the time, the court ordered that the settlement would cover all future agent orange claims in addition to the ones already known. The current plain­tiffs believe that the $3,500 they would receive under the 1984 settlement is in­sufficient to cover their health problems.

Robert M. Hager, the Washington, D.C.-based attorney representing the plaintiffs, calls the Supreme Court rejec­tion "shocking." He adds, "This is very disappointing for Vietnam veterans who have the feeling they have been screwed up and down by their government on this case." Many veterans believe they are so­cial pariahs because of the Vietnam War, he adds, and that they have once again been singled out for punishment.

Hager says the plaintiffs submitted a strong petition to the Supreme Court. Moreover, their appeal was supported by the attorneys general of all 50 states, showing rare unanimity. The states' con­cern was that handling of the agent or­ange case has changed the rules for feder­al court takeover of state court cases, r e

National Academy of Engineering elects new members The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) has elected 79 new members and eight foreign associates, bringing the total number of U.S. members to 1,732 and of foreign associates to 148. NAE membership honors individuals who have made important contribu­tions to engineering theory and prac­tice. New members and associates who are chemists, chemical engineers, or who work in chemically related ar­eas include:

Bruce A. Finlayson, Rhenberg Pro­fessor of Chemical Engineering & Ap­plied Mathematics and chair, depart­ment of chemical engineering, Univer­sity of Washington, Seattle.

Renato Fuchs, senior vice president, manufacturing and development oper­ations, Chiron Corp., Emeryville, Calif.

John L. Gidley, president, John L. Gidley & Associates, Houston.

Joseph J. Jacobs, chairman, Jacobs Engineering Group, Pasadena, Calif.

Marvin M. Johnson, research fel­low, Phillips Petroleum, Bartlesville, Okla.

James D. Livingston, senior lectur­er, department of materials science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

James E. McGrath, Ethyl Professor, department of chemistry, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State Universi­ty, Blacksburg.

Gabriel Schmergel, president and chief executive officer, Genetics Insti­tute, Cambridge, Mass.

Lanny D. Schmidt, professor of chemical engineering and materials science, University of Minnesota, Min­neapolis.

Walter J. Schrenk, senior research scientist, Dow Chemical, Midland, Mich.

Jerome S. Schultz, director, Center for Biotechnology & Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh.

Michael F. Sfat, president emeritus, Bio-Technical Resources, Manitowoc, Wis.

Jeffrey J. Siirola, senior research as­sociate, Eastman Chemical Co., Kings-port, Tenn.

James M. Symons, professor of civ­il engineering and director, environ­mental engineering program, Univer­sity of Houston.

Gianni Astarita, professor of chem­ical engineering, University of Naples, Italy.

suiting in too much exertion of federal control.

The 1988 suit was filed in Texas state court, but was transferred by federal judge Jack B. Weinstein—who adjudicat­ed the 1984 settlement—to his court, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern Dis­trict of New York. Weinstein says the agent orange case is unique because of the settlement arrangements, but state attorneys are concerned about future federal court takeover tendencies.

David Hanson

Industry offers ways to improve Superfund bill Measures to improve the Administra­tion's Superfund reform bill were of­fered by chemical industry and business representatives at a House Energy & Commerce subcommittee hearing last week.

The hearing focused on the bill's remedy selection provisions, which de­termine cleanup standards at Super-fund sites. Critics have lambasted these provisions in existing law for delaying cleanups and raising cleanup costs.

Rep. Al Swift (D.-Wash.), chairman of the Transportation & Hazardous Materi­als Subcommittee, introduced the Ad­ministration's bill Feb. 3. An identical bill has been introduced in the Senate (C&EN, Feb. 14, page 18).

These bills would require the Environ­mental Protection Agency to develop national cleanup levels, also called stan­dards, specifically for chemicals found at Superfund sites. The standards would factor in several variables, including fu­ture land use of the sites. The bills also would allow for such alternative clean­up strategies as containment, to replace the current law's preference for perma­nent treatment at every site.

Frank Popoff, chairman and chief ex­ecutive officer (CEO) of Dow Chemical, speaking for the Business Roundtable, recommends that site-specific factors be considered when EPA determines national cleanup levels. Specifically, the roundtable would like the reform bill to include a provision allowing respon­sible parties the option of implement­ing either a cleanup remedy based on a national standard or a site-specific risk assessment.

The Chemical Manufacturers Associa­tion (CMA) supports this call for site-

6 FEBRUARY 28,1994 C&EN

First Lady lobbies at NIH for health care reform National Institutes of Health director Harold E. Varmus greets First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton during her vis­it to NIH's Bethesda, Md., campus. Clinton met with patients at NIH clin­ics and with scientists, received an overview of research on molecular medicine from Varmus, and heard briefings on the human genome

§ project, gene therapy, AIDS J research, and new drug de-§ sign. In a speech to 500 § members of the NIH staff, 2 Clinton stressed the Ad­

ministration's support for basic research and urged NIH staffers to back the President's health care re­form proposal. "Without basic research, we never would have been able to beat diseases like hepatitis or polio," she noted. "The President believes in the need for a continuing in­vestment in basic biomedi­cal research and training. For much of the past de­cade they were neglected and underfunded, and the President plans to fix that." Moreover, she emphasized,

biomedical research and health care reform go hand-in-hand. The "stupid­ity" of the current health care system threatens the work of biomedical re­searchers, she said. At the rate the hu­man genome project is proceeding, "we will soon discover we all have preexisting conditions and are totally uninsurable. Without comprehensive care, many of the benefits of the re­search you are working on will not reach people," she noted.

specific risk assessments. These would "provide the most accurate picture of real risks at a site, and would lead to the most appropriate response/' says CMA chairman Roger Hirl, chairman and CEO of Occidental Chemical. Ci-ba-Geigy chairman Richard A. Barth agrees.

CMA and the roundtable applaud the reform bill's inclusion of contain­ment as an alternative to treatment of wastes when either option protects the surrounding community equally. But they would like a tighter definition of heavily polluted "hot spots" in the pro­vision mandating treatment for such areas. This requirement should be clar­ified "to ensure that only those sites or portions of sites which are truly hot spots will be subject to a treatment preference," explains Popoff.

Both industry and environmental groups support the reform bill's provi­sion calling for community involvement in the remedy selection process. Hirl calls it "one of the clear benefits of the bill." Under the reform bill, explains

Elliott P. Laws, assistant EPA adminis­trator for solid waste and emergency response, poor and minority communi­ties—which are frequently located near Superfund sites—would have a voice in deciding future land-use expectations.

Superfund expires on Oct. 31. Howev­er, its chances for reauthorization this year are slim because of its controversial nature and priority given other issues.

Lois Ember

Climate- change treaty strengthening urged Delegates from more than 100 countries meeting in Geneva have generally agreed that the climate-change treaty signed at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro should be strengthened. The Rio treaty, which goes into effect March 21, calls for industrialized countries to cut back emissions of greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2000.

Many countries, including the U.S.,

pointed out at the two-week Intergov­ernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) meeting that the terms of the Rio con­vention are inadequate to stabilize—let alone reduce—the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

However, most delegations shied away from making specific suggestions on stronger actions to take. Delegates made no major decisions, not even on how to go about changing the treaty. Environmental groups are pushing for a target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 20% by 2005.

The INC meeting was the ninth in a series held first to draft the Rio conven­tion, and now to discuss how to imple­ment it.

One of the few concrete suggestions came from the Dutch delegation, which proposed controls on hydrofluorocar-bon (HFC) substitutes for ozone-deplet­ing chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). HFCs, which have a significant global warming potential, are rapidly replacing CFCs in a number of refrigeration and air-con­ditioning applications. Describing HFCs as an easy first target, the Dutch dele­gates did not propose a complete ban on their use but urged controls on their emissions.

HFCs already are under scrutiny in the U.S.: President Bill Clinton's Climate Change Action Plan (C&EN, Oct. 25, 1993, page 4) directs the Environmental Protection Agency to limit their use if better alternatives are available. But the proposal for international limits dis­mayed industry representatives at the meeting.

"We're concerned that HFCs were singled out," says David Stirpe, assistant director of the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, based in Arling­ton, Va. HFCs "are just one small piece of the puzzle compared to carbon diox­ide, the real problem," Stirpe adds. "HFCs are needed for the transition away from CFCs/' The alliance— known until last fall as the Alliance for Responsible CFC Policy—is a coalition of producers and users of CFCs and CFC substitutes.

INC is scheduled to hold two more meetings before the first official Con­ference of the Parties to the Rio Con­vention, in Berlin in March 1995. At that time, countries that have ratified the treaty may vote to amend it or to formu­late protocols addressing specific issues such as HFCs.

Pamela Zurer

FEBRUARY 28, 1994 C&EN 7