Summary

The Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) assessments of the health risks posed by Superfund hazardous waste sites, which can determine the cost of site cleanups, have been a source of great controversy because they are often based on limited data and therefore often rely on assumptions about the health effects of waste sites. This testimony (1) presents an overview of EPA's risk assessment process that highlights where risk assumptions are made and (2) summarizes comments from reports prepared by GAO and others on some of the more controversial aspects of this process.