Mr. RYAN. Thank you for a comprehensive and encouraging opening statement of intentions outlining what you hope to do. If you can come through with what you are beginning to do, we ought to be very far ahead when we get through.

I do not know that this is the proper time to ask this question. However, do you have enough money to do the job?

Mr. LIBASSI. Mr. Ryan, we do think we have the resources needed to launch this first phase. We have tapped the various elements within HEW. Each of the agencies on the task force has contributed staff and is making material and information available to us. Therefore, I believe we can get this part of the task done.

Of course, once we have identified the tasks that follow, particularly in the area of additional research that is needed, there may well be a need for additional resources. However, we can get this preliminary phase done without seeking additional resources from Congress. Mr. RYAN. The reason I ask the question is because there are two prime sources of information. They are also two of the oldest sources. One is the effect of the atomic blast on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is now well into the second generation following those blasts.

The other source of information is the atomic test sites and nuclear blast sites in this country going back to that same period and going another 10 or 15 years forward from that.

In both of those instances there is substantial data available to be collected.

Do you have knowledge of any comprehensive study made of the people who were involved or who were near those two areas, who could have suffered or did suffer from some kind of radiation exposure?

Mr. LIBASSI. I am aware of extensive research work that has been going on in Japan. The Department of Energy is here today to testify. I am sure they will be able to provide more detailed information on that area. There are extensive studies going on in that area.

Dr. Heath, would you care to comment on the studies which are currently underway in terms of the adequacy of resources available for those?

Dr. HEATH. Studies of the people who were present at the atmospheric tests have not been made in great depth. It has only recently, in the past year or so, received attention.

Organizing the data into a state where it will be useful for research people is a massive task. The largest effort underway presently is being conducted by the Department of Defense to trace all those records and get them into an organized shape.

Mr. RYAN. You may not have detailed information. Do you believe you have adequate resources from which to draw information or is basic research necessary? What is your conclusion?

Mr. LIBASSI. At this very early stage, Mr. Chairman, I want to be very careful. I think we are dealing with a situation in which we need to identify the persons who have been exposed. There may be serious questions as to whether or not we have, or could ever have, the kind of detailed, scientific information about those exposures which would enable us to draw detailed conclusions.

As I have been briefed and had it explained to me by the Department of Defense, we do not know exactly where particular individuals were standing or were located at the time of these explosions. We do not have necessarily accurate data on the amount of radiation to which

they were exposed. All of that would make the drawing of scientific conclusions from that data difficult.

We may find that going back and looking at these tests may not provide us with the kind of scientific base on which detailed conclusions could be drawn. Nevertheless, the Departments of Defense and Energy are at work on this. The Department of Defense has an extensive program of locating the individuals. This is the beginning of a base for epidemiological studies which are now underway by CDC and NIH.

Mr. RYAN. I asked the question because it is a rare individual in the Government who is able to criticize his own kin or kind. It is even more rare to have an agency criticize itself in any kind of official capacity. Those agencies that are involved are agencies that have been working with and involved in decisions that have to do with radiation hazards and needs.

I am not talking so much about X-ray use in the Defense Department in a medicinal sense, but I am talking about the kinds of accidental discoveries which we come across over a period of time, such as the one recently in Portsmouth where a high incidence of cancer was discovered among those who have worked in that area. The Yucca Flats test sites were not discovered by any kind of determined Federal or even State research project. They were discovered by accident, as far as I know from the information I have.

I wonder if you are reasonably satisfied that you will be able to peel off whatever classification might be made for security purposes that are political as opposed to health or environmental matters.

Mr. LIBASSI. We have been in this only 2 months, Mr. Chairman. I do not want to draw long-term conclusions at this point. However, un to this point, I have found the agencies that have been involved in this area over many years ready and willing to cooperate fully in providing information and getting at the bottom of this.

I have not detected in any of my dealings with the agencies at this noint any desire to defend the past. In fact, to the contrary, I have found a degree of candor most refreshing.

In our briefings at the Department of Defense they went extensively into the problems they were encountering in identifying the men who were at the site. They disclosed their deep concern for the personnel who were there. There was full disclosure by the various services on what had happened to the best of their knowledge as they are able to trace it. I detect nothing but a serious effort to identify and to present for the scientific community the evidence that they could in fact put together.

In conducting this study, I hope HEW will do it in an open way so that as we progress, if public interest groups, environmental groups, Members of Congress, or others feel we are overlooking areas or we are not being sufficiently sensitive to areas of further inquiry which need to be pressed, these groups will tell us.

We feel a special responsibility on a long-term basis to be sure we have done everything we can to present the facts to the American public for consideration as well as to Congress for consideration in terms of how Congress believes we should be structured to handle this issue in the future.

We are not interested in protecting or defending what has happened in the past. What happened in the past happened a long time ago.

Everyone is prepared to say we did the best we could then with what we knew. Today we know a great deal more. If we had known then what we know today, we would have taken far more precautions than we did.

I have a sense that everyone really feels we should attempt to resolve this. In the administration's assignment of the task to HEW I believe there was a desire to be sure that the public health issues were brought to the surface and were fully discussed and considered by the task force.

Mr. RYAN. I hope that 15 or 10 years from now when some other unfortunate and misguided Representative sits here as chairman of this particular subcommittee, if we are all still here, that he does not have to hear that we made a lot of mistakes now that they are going to have to try to take care of then. It is time to catch up. Mr. Kindness?

Mr. KINDNESS. I have no questions.

Mr. RYAN. Mr. Drinan?

Mr. DRINAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Libassi, Reorganization Plan No. 3 gave to EPA the power that is now delegated to you. Under the law that was enacted many years ago by the Congress. EPA should have been doing this all along. In fact, under the law EPA has the power to make policy recommendations to the President. These recommendations are binding upon other Federal agencies upon their approval by the White House.

In short, would you agree with my interpretation of the law that the EPA already has the responsibilities just given to HEW by Mr. Brzezinski and Mr. Eizenstat?

Mr. LIBASSI. Mr. Drinan

Mr. DRINAN. Yes or no? It is a simple, clear question, isn't it? [Laughter.]

Mr. LIBASSI. I have not found anything in this subject that lends itself to a clear answer.

Mr. DRINAN. I have.

Mr. LIBASSI. I do not believe the task we have been assigned is in conflict with the statutory duties of EPA.

Mr. DRINAN. It is not in conflict; it just duplicates it.

Mr. LIBASSI. I am assuming our task will be completed in the next 90 days and that we will consider options and alternatives for the coordination of research as to the health effects of radiation. Certainly one of the things we will want to consider is the role of EPA under the Executive order.

Mr. DRINAN. The Congress has already concluded long ago that EPA is the lead agency in this. We gave by law under Reorganization Plan No. 3 a very clear statutory authority that is binding upon other agencies upon approval by the President. You do not have to reconsider.

This is the Government Operations Committee. I recall well all of these issues going through this particular full committee.

I am glad somebody is taking responsibility. I assume that EPA has not done so. We are going to have a witness later on who indicates that EPA for a variety of reasons has not been able to do it.

Let me ask how Mr. Brzezinski initiated the order to HEW. Mr. LIBASSI. I am not familiar with conversations that were held at the White House. I think there was concern that in light of the

Defense Department's involvement as well as involvement of the domestic agencies, it would be helpful if both Mr. Brzezinski and Mr. Eizenstat signed the memo to the various agencies involved. That was the only reason I could tell why both the international and domestic sides of the White House staff sent this memo to the departments.

Mr. DRINAN. After you turn in your recommendations in 60 or 90 days, what is the policy then? Will the EPA be required to enforce these things as it is already required to do? Will the task force be institutionalized?

Mr. LIBASSI. There would be no immediate action simply on the filing of our report. It will be for Congress and the White House to decide whether or not they believe any changes should be made in the current arrangements. The administration can propose legislation to the Congress if it feels the present arrangement is not satisfactory or it can. construct whatever interagency or coordinating mechanisms it feels would be useful.

In our report we would like to state what has been happening without in any way attempting to justify what currently exists or to protect anyone in terms of what is going on.

This committee has heard evidence that at the present time the executive agencies of the Government are not handling this problem well. That is probably an understatement. The committees of Congress have driven that point home.

We have not identified these problems well. We have not been considering the adequacies of the long-term health studies that need to be addressed in order to identify health needs to people. We have not had the kind of relationship between research and regulatory activities that is needed.

In my conversations with EPA they were frank to say to me that they looked forward to working with us closely and that they were dissatisfied with the kind of research they are able to have done in order to guide their regulatory activities.

When we finish our report, we will come forward with several options, alternatives, or recommendations on coordination with the executive branch with respect to the health research issues.

Mr. DRINAN. In January of this year the Department of Energy conceded to the Congress in open hearings that over 400,000 military and civilian personnel have been exposed to nuclear weapons radiation over the past generation. Is the possibility of some indemnification to these 400,000 American citizens within your mandate? Mr. LIBASSI. Yes, it is, Mr. Drinan.

Mr. DRINAN. Also in your mandate is there the present and continuing existence of serious dangers to anybody, even a maintenance worker who works at a light water reactor?

Mr. LIBASSI. Yes.

Mr. DRINAN. Is there anything concerning all of this, military and civilian, that is not within your mandate?

Mr. LIBASSI. There is nothing I can think of within the area of ionizing radiation that is outside our mandate.

Mr. DRINAN. With all due respect, I hope you can cover all this in 60 to 90 days. However, as you have indicated, it is enormous. You yourself say in your testimony you expect to turn up with more questions than answers.

After you have redefined the questions that this subcommittee has

heard at some length over the past several weeks or months you may have a few answers, but what happens then?

Mr. LIBASSI. I am hoping that as a result of the process by which we arrive at our final report that the public and the Congress will have before them a series of tasks defined. Then the Congress and the administration can decide whether they wish to pursue them.

Mr. DRINAN. This is the Government Operations Committee. It is disconcerting to me as a member of the Government Operations Committee to learn that the EPA has not been doing what the Congress solemnly told them to do. Now the White House has this task force and it does not know what is going to happen at the end of the task force process. It seems to me that it is up to the Congress to say that the EPA should be relieved of the duty or required to fulfill the duty as the lead agency.

I commend your work. I am glad somebody is thinking about it. Obviously it is an overwhelming problem of infinite complexity. I commend you and I am glad you are doing it.

We will follow this very closely. If nothing of a permanent nature is set up after the task force reports, it is obviously the obligation of the Government Operations Committee to follow through.

Thank you very much. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. RYAN. In putting this task force together, have you discussed the possibility of arranging for some other kind of legislation which will give some agency the capacity to do what the Congress is trying to get done? We have given it to the EPA and, as Mr. Drinan has said, it has not been very successful. That is not necessarily because EPA does not want to but because there is so much internal rivalry, which we have discovered already, and internal unwillingness to follow the mandate of Congress on the part of other agencies.

Is it possible?

Mr. LIBASSI. Yes, it is, Mr. Chairman. We do intend to have recommendations with respect to this area-that is, how the executive branch coordinates its efforts to protect the public health.

In Washington these kinds of issues on occasion do generate into petty, bureaucratic turf warfare. I am going to do everything I can in carrying out this task to be sure that we all keep uppermost in our minds that we are dealing with the long-term health of the American. people and that these issues are too important to allow this group to slip into narrow, bureaucratic or provincial attitudes.

We intend to carry out the study; to deal with the facts as they are; to face the failures of agencies, whatever they may be; and to recommend both executive and legislative action as needed to correct the situation.

Mr. RYAN. It is Ryan's 17th law which reads that, above the capacity or the interest in protecting human life, property, animal life, the seas, the land, and the air, among those in Federal employment at the top levels there is the desire to protect first of all their own power, turf, and rear end. [Laughter.]

I would hope that your task force can recognize that 17th law and give us some recommendations as to what we might do to break that up a little bit.

Thank you very much.

Mr. LIBASSI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Submissions to additional subcommittee questions follow:]