***Q. The least clear item in this chapter was where one law stops and another law begins, and similarly, how one division of government cedes various areas of control to another depending on who is the responsible agency.
A. Good question. The Federal Government is automatically exempt from state laws. And agencies of the Federal Government are exempt from each other's regulations, unless congress stated in the law that other agencies had to conform. BUT, the president, through executive orders, directs the federal agencies to conform to state laws and most agency regulations. Also, the agencies often direct their subordinates to conform to state and local laws and ordinances.
**Q. After I did my TRI assignment I realized that so many chemicals are released in the environment every year. But I wonder how do they calculated it. But the most unclear part was about setting standards for emissions if the calculations may vary in different labs even if following the same procedure than can the standards be challenged or do they set the standards keeping allowances for such errors or differences.
A. For many emissions from many industries, there are more or less standard methods for analysis. In other cases, the regulations specify the standards. The analysis method is very important.
**Q. The least clear issue was how exactly the TRI works. I know from working with mines in AK that they must report their waste rock in the TRI (although I think a court case recently changed this) despite the fact that they just moved the rock from one place to another. There are toxic metals contained in the waste rock and that the metals may be more mobile in their new position but calling this a release to the environment may be a stretch. Is it fair for a company to report all the arsenic contained in the waste rock as a release when some may be contained in minerals that have very low solubility?
A. Many deep issues you raise. The mining company converted the natural rock to a waste by digging it up. It is not "released" per se, but the waste is disposed on the ground. They could store rock that did not have any toxic constituents, and it would still be a waste, but they would not have to report anything. If there is a logic there, it would be that the dug-up rock is more likely to leach then in situ rock.
Q. I never did find LD50s for my chemicals. Is there a good place to find these? It seemed that they should be on the MSDS with the PEL, TWA and TLVs.
A. LD50s are rarely on MSDS sheets. LD50s don't mean much, unless you get into the toxicology and find out what species were tested and lots of details about the testing. Even then the results are often "hard to interpret." Where you will always find them is the preamble to the OSHA rulemaking that set the PEL. Another good place is the EPA's IRIS site.
Q. What is the relationship between the EPA, OSHA and NIOSH standards above and the LD50?
A. We'll talk about these in Module 4. Briefly, the EPA makes regulations about the environment, OSHA makes regulations about the workplace, and NIOSH makes recomendations that no one pays any attention to.