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Over the past 25 years, my academic and work experiences have involved and intersected with biopolitics, particularly environmental policy, international relations, and ethics. My academic and teaching experience was in political theory and ethics, and my early research interests turned to emerging recombinant DNA issues, involving the complex interaction of biological science, technology and public policy processes. My scholarly contacts included those with similar concerns, and so I joined with a group of scholars creating the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences. Several years later, my interests brought me to work in a federal agency where public policy decisions often raise important ethical choices, and the political and behavioral aspects of the policy process became more evident. My research centered on issues related to environmental protection. This work was also influenced by my professional friendship with Lynton Caldwell, another APLS founder and a remarkable scholar, whose work on environmental politics was internationally recognized. After the implosion of the Soviet Union, teaching environmental policy for the Agency in Eastern Europe renewed my interest in international relations, which had been my undergraduate focus. The topic of environmental security combined all of these interests. This topic gained substantial attention in policy circles, then declined, but is now being discussed again.

This article explores long-term issues and problems that have seriously undermined the U.S. Chemical Testing Program established by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Toxic Substances Control Act. This program is meant to gather information needed to protect human health and the environment from damaging exposure to toxic chemicals. Despite seemingly broad and impressive authority under the statute, there are a number of inherent difficulties, as well as substantial political constraints, that impede comprehensive oversight of chemicals in U.S. commerce. The article discusses several approaches that EPA has adopted to overcome statutory and political limitations and increase chemical testing information. The most recent and promising of these efforts has involved international negotiations to harmonize testing approaches with OECD nations and to cooperate on an agenda that will better share the testing burden on an international level.

Because of the interrelating, cross‐media character of many environmental problems, development of comprehensive and coherent policies for their abatement or management is difficult. This is particularly true where, as in the United States, there has been a strong tendency to focus on single issues of complex problems. Nowhere is this problem of policy and program integration more difficult than in the Environmental Protection Agency. This article uses the lead contamination issue to illustrate the obstacles to integration of policy and procedure even for a single environmental pollutant. Given the holistic and ramifying character of environmental problems, how can appropriate policies and regulations be developed in a political system characterized by sectoral, specialized structure and special interest clientele? At the time of this writing, the effects of elevating the EPA to a cabinet level department cannot fully be foreseen. The expansion of EPA to the administration of nonregulatory responsibilities will doubtless bring new problems of policy to this agency. Problems of program integration may increase unless EPA is authorized to devise and adapt more effective integrative procedures.

The monograph, Biotechnology: Public Policy and the Social Sciences—Critical Needs in Teaching and Research [Biotechnology], emphasizes the need for social scientists to increase their participation in public policy regarding biotechnology through research, teaching and policy recommendations. The authors (Robert H. Blank, Lynton K. Caldwell, Thomas C. Wiegele, and Raymond A. Zilinskas) persuasively argue that critical issues are at stake here. Although scientific methodology and definitions underlie important choices regarding biotechnology, we face issues that go beyond scientific inquiry and expertise. Recombinant DNA research raised concerns in the late 1970s, which were sufficiently addressed through the NIH guidelines. Now commercial developments in biotechnology are posing other quite significant social and ethical issues. The idea that nonscientists should become actively involved in science policy is not new, but the message bears repeating. It has been standard practice in our society for technical experts to claim exclusive authority in broad areas of decision-making involving technical matters. Only recently, for example, have we begun to insist upon full disclosure from our doctors, and reclaim the right to make important decisions about our own lives and bodies. Technical experts cannot fully address ethical and social concerns. Moreover, in the area of biotechnology, experts have strong interests, both intellectual and financial; they are not likely to make unbiased decisions. These choices properly belong to the political realm.