Norman Mineta: “this amendment would make this bill's provisions on risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis consistent with those in…”

“this amendment would make this bill's provisions on risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis consistent with those in H.R. 1022, the Risk Assessment and Cost-Benefit Act of 1995 already passed by the House earlier this year. This bill requires elaborate risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis to be performed before regulations to protect clean water can be issued. The argument in favor of these requirements is that the House has already spoken on the issue of risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis, and we should be consistent with it in the Clean Water Act. But the provisions in this bill are not consistent with H.R. 1022-- they are more extreme and more onerous in three key respects. First, regarding comparative risk analysis, H.R. 961 would have EPA and the Corps of Engineers compare the risks which are the subject of their rulemaking to not only risks that they know something about, such as the health effects of toxics in water or flooding due to filling of wetlands, but also risks about which they know nothing, such as auto accidents on highways or building collapse due to earthquakes. H.R. 1022 specifically rejected having agencies make risk comparisons outside their areas of expertise, because of a valid concern that agencies wouldn't know what they were doing. Second, this bill contains a look-back provision which would require risk assessment and cost-benefit analysis to be applied to existing, as well as proposed, regulations.”