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nations to reduce their overall emissions of sixgreenhouse gases between 2008 and 2012 byat least 5% below 1990 levels.

Critics of the Kyoto Protocol claim thatefforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissionswould drive out of business many U.S.companies whose livelihood depends onthe combustion of carbon-based products.But not everyone agrees with that predic-tion, even in industry. BP Amoco, thethird-largest oil company in the world,announced in September 1998 its intentionto reduce its greenhouse gas emissions overthe next decade by 10% below 1990 levels,3% lower than the amount set for theUnited States under the Kyoto Protocol.BP Amoco's action plan calls for increasedinvestment in solar technology, additionalenergy efficiency measures, and participa-tion in joint implementation projects withdeveloping nations to reduce or offset theirgreenhouse gas emissions. In cooperationwith the Environmental Defense Fund, BPAmoco also established a pilot program toreduce emissions using emissions trading.BP Amoco hopes to expand its photovolta-ic energy business 10-fold over the nextdecade. In January 1998, the companyopened its first U.S. plant to produce itsinnovative Apollo thin film photovoltaicpanels in Fairfield, California.

Kenneth E. Blower, director of environ-ment, health, and safety for BP Amoco inNew York, worked with the PCSD todevelop the early action principles. He seesthe opportunity to take early action as animportant incentive for industry. "It's a newissue," he says. "You need to integrate thisissue into business planning processes." Headds that BP Amoco plans to freely sharewhat the company learns as it moves aheadwith reduction efforts. "This is a businessissue for BP Amoco," he says, "and it's[also] just the right thing to do."

Legislation prompting early action wasproposed during the last Congress. InOctober 1998, Senators John Chafee(R-Rhode Island), Joseph Lieberman(D-Connecticut), and Connie Mack(R-Florida) introduced the Credit for EarlyAction Act, an incentive-based law thatwould reward companies and other organi-zations for voluntarily reducing their green-house gas emissions. Earned credit could beapplied against any future emissions reduc-tion obligation enacted by Congress. Thesecredits could also be used domestically in anemissions trading plan in which participantscan buy emissions credits to meet theirreduction commitments, or sell credits iftheir reductions turn out to be higher thanmandated. The senators expect to reintro-duce the legislation in the current session ofCongress.

The seven early action principles arepart of an extensive report by the PCSDthat will be submitted to President Clintonlater this year. This report includes a num-ber of recommendations to further progresstoward sustainable development while tack-ling the challenge of climate change, devel-oping a new environmental managementframework, revitalizing metropolitan andrural communities, and furthering U.S.leadership in the international arena.

Preferable Products Mean aHealthier EarthThe United States con-sumes more than 25% ofthe world's resources withonly 5% of the world'spopulation. By far, the sin-gle largest U.S. consumer isthe federal government,which spends $200 billionon goods and services as

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well as an additional $240 billion on grantdisbursements every year. With this immensepurchasing power, the federal government isin a position of unequaled influence when itcomes to encouraging the development ofenvironmentally friendly products to pushsustainability into the next century.

In 1993, the Environmentally PreferablePurchasing (EPP) program was developedwithin the Office of Prevention, Pesticides,and Toxic Substances at the U.S. Environ-mental Protection Agency (EPA). The pro-gram encourages and assists federal executiveagencies in considering environment-alongwith price and performance-when makingpurchasing decisions. The Clinton adminis-tration coined the term "environmentallypreferable" to describe products and serviceswith a lesser or reduced effect on humanhealth and the environment.

The EPP program is an indirect result ofthe administration's 1993 Executive Order12873, which directed federal agencies toenact environmentally preferable purchasingpolicies with the help of the EPA-a com-mitment that was reaffirmed by ExecutiveOrder 13101 in 1998, which called for anincrease in the federal government's use ofenvironmentally preferable products and ser-vices, induding recycled products.

In the five years since its inception, theEPP program has spawned a series of success-ful pilot projects. Among these are a collabo-rative effort with the General ServicesAdministration to develop a framework foridentifying and comparing environmentallypreferable cleaners, a Department of Defenseinitiative to use environmentally preferableproducts in the maintenance and repair of itsWashington, DC, parking lots, and an EPA

EnvironmentallyPreferable Purchasing

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effort to construct buildings using materialsthat balance cost, function, and environmen-tal impact.

Officials at the EPP program hope thatexpanded federal purchasing of environmen-tally preferable products will follow therelease of a long-awaited report, InterimFinal Guidance on Environmentally PreferablePurchasing, later this year. The guidanceincludes a prioritized list of product cate-gories in which agencies are encouraged tofocus their EPP efforts. Areas of particularinterest for expansion include computerreuse and disposal programs and the use of

nontoxic paints andadhesives. Balancingdivergent stakeholderviews on what "envi-ronmentally prefer-able" means took threeyears and is seen byEPP program managerEunsook Goidel as nosmall achievement.

"It's difficult to define what 'environmental-ly preferable' is, and there is not a lot ofinformation on the subject," she says. Toprepare the guidance, EPP staffers reviewedcomments from over 90 stakeholders andcapitalized on the experience gained throughthe pilot programs. The guidance is designedto help agencies steer their way through theenvironmentally friendly product market-place by providing them with a set of guid-ing purchasing principles that take intoaccount factors such as pollution prevention,global versus local impacts, and life-cycleperspective.

Much to the chagrin of some agencypurchasing officials, the EPP program haslimited its efforts to providing guidance onenvironmental attributes, rather than pro-ducing a list of specific prod ucts or manu-facturers. Says Martin Durbin, associatedirector for federal and international affairsat the American Plastics Council, aWashington, DC-based trade association,"There's no problem with the idea of usingenvironmentally preferable products. Thedevil is in the detail-how you define thespecific criteria. Most purchasing officialsdon't have time to perform an extendedanalysis. Understandably, it's easier for themto have a list of things they should buy,which puts the EPP [program] in the posi-tion of picking winners and losers. To theircredit, they didn't do that."

Some companies that have invested inenvironmental product development haveseen their profits rise handsomely in responseto EPP initiatives. "Without a doubt, thebiggest growth has been in our green pro-gram," says Stephen P. Ashkin, vice presidentof Rochester-Midland, a specialty chemicals

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manufacturer. However, Durbin maintainsthat difficulties still exist in establishing aclear flow of information from manufactur-ers and EPP program staff to the often bewil-dered purchasing officials at the end of theline. Goidel is hopeful that the soon-to-be-released guidance, as well as the environmen-tal considerations that are now incorporatedin the Federal Acquisition Regulations (asshe describes it, a "bible to purchasing offi-cials"), will help in this respect.

Meanwhile, the concept of EPP is gettingsome strong congressional support. A biparti-san group of senators led by Tom Harkin(D-Iowa), recently requested a $4 millionbudget increase for the program from theOffice of Management and Budget. Harkin,who advocates increased use by the federalgovernment of agricultural by-products assubstitutes for synthetic materials such asinks, lubricants, and adhesives, has also calledfor the creation of an interagency environ-mentally preferable products coordinatingcouncil to coordinate product identificationand information dissemination.

According to Goidel, state governmentsare instituting programs similar to the EPPprogram, and international interest in theU.S. experience is growing. "Many compa-nies are excited about the trend [toward envi-ronmentally preferable products]," she says."Other companies could lose market shareunless they change their products as well.We're encouraging environmental concernsas well as price and performance. Companiesthat optimize all three will be the winners."

EHPS Publishes Evidence onEnvironmental Tobacco SmokeThe evidence continues to mount that envi-ronmental tobacco smoke (ETS), also knownas secondhand smoke, affects more than justsmokers. The April 1999 issue of Environ-mental Health Perspectives Supplements bringsmuch ot this evidencetogether as it delves intothe various health, riskassessment, and quantifi-cation aspects of ETSexposure.

The issue contains theproceedings of a work-shop held in Baltimore,Maryland, in September1997 that examined theoccurrence of ETS in theworkplace. Contributingauthors had conductedreviews in their areas ofexpertise with the goal ofdeveloping a risk assess-ment for worker exposureto ETS.

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Roger A. Jenkins and Richard W.Counts of Tennessee's Oak Ridge NationalLaboratory reviewed the use of personalexposure assessment in two recent studies onoccupational exposure to ETS. Personalexposure assessment uses an individual sam-pling device to gather contaminant samplesfrom each subject's breathing zone.

The first study examined subjects both atwork and away from work, fitting them withstrap-on sampling devices. Workers in facili-ties where smoking is permitted were foundto be exposed to 10-20 times more ETSthan those who worked in places wheresmoking is banned. Workers in facilities withsmoking and nonsmoking sections wereexposed to 2-8 times less ETS than workersin facilities where smoking is permittedthroughout. However, all the exposures weregenerally found to be much lower than thoseestimated in earlier studies.

The second study examined waitstaffand bartender exposures to ETS on the job,using sampling devices similar to those inthe first study. The median level of ETSexposure in a single-room bar was found toexceed that in a multiroom establishment bya factor of 10. Still, Jenkins and Counts con-cluded that, while some occupational groupsare exposed to more ETS than other groups,even the most highly exposed subgroupstudied (bartenders working in single-roombars) is not exposed to levels as high as thoseestimated in a 1994 ETS risk assessmentpublished by the Occupational Safety andHealth Administration.

Other scientists feel that biomarkers pro-vide the best means for quantifying exposuresto ETS. Neal L. Benowitz, a professor in thedivision of clinical pharmacology and experi-mental therapeutics at the University ofCalifornia at San Francisco, wrote of how thenicotine metabolite cotinine works as a sensi-tive, specific biomarker for human exposureto ETS. Cotinine is one of the most fre-

quently used biomarkersfor quantifying ETSexposure because its pres-ence in the body isalmost exclusively due toexposure to tobacco.Other biomarkers havebeen proposed for use inmeasuring ETS expo-sure, but some, such ascarbon monoxide, arenot specific to tobaccoand may occur inresponse to a variety ofother exposures or eventhrough the body's ownmetabolic processes. Stillother proposed biomark-ers, such as solanesol, are

difficult to accurately measure.Still, cotinine's validity has been chal-

lenged. Critics have argued that people areexposed to nicotine not just through smokingbut also through foods such as black tea andtomatoes. Benowitz countered that levels ofdietary nicotine reported in earlier studies areunrealistically high. To take in the amount ofdietary nicotine attributed in one 1991 studyto drinking black tea, for instance, the subjectwould have to have drunk about four quartsof the beverage per day.

Another criticism is that cotinine levelsmay be influenced by exposures occurring inthe absense of ETS, such as walking into aroom where someone previously smoked.According to Benowitz, such situations are atrivial source of nicotine exposure; using acalculation method he described in hispaper, the amount of nicotine taken in fromsuch sources would result in a urine cotinineconcentration of as little as 0.1 ng/mL, over75% lower than that expected of a non-smoker exposed to ETS in a smoky bar.

In his EHPS paper, Neil E. Klepeis ofthe department of environmental health sci-ences at the University of California atBerkeley took a look at smoke itself. Hereviewed three recent studies on how ETSpollutants actually move and mix in the air,and reanalyzed data from several other pub-lished studies of ETS. Klepeis said the typicalapproach of assuming perfect mixing of pol-lutants and of equating a person's ETS expo-sure with a measurement at a single point ina room may not always be an accurate repre-sentation of actual ETS exposure.

Klepeis demonstrated how runningmeans can be used to determine the averag-ing, or mixing, time that is required beforeETS exposure measurements taken at anyone point in a room will be within 10% ofthe spatial room mean. Based on data col-lected in a residence, a tavern, and smokinglounges, Klepeis concluded that averagingtimes ranging from 12 to 80 minutes(depending on the environment) appear tobe sufficient.

Averaging times need to be considerablylonger for environments where many smok-ers are present, such as in a bar or party, thanfor environments where one smoker lightsup a single cigarette. Starting with the casefor a single, brief ETS source, Klepeis pre-sented a method for estimating appropriateaveraging times in multiple-smoker environ-ments by treating overlapping smokers as acontinuous source of ETS.

The April issue is rounded out withpapers that examine alternate methods forassessing exposure to ETS, investigate mathe-matical models for predicting indoor airquality from smoking activity, and exploreissues in ETS exposures in the workplace.

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