chapter 5 - Department of Chemistry

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There were a number of reasons for the environment to beon everyone’s mind in the 1990s. In 1991, deforestationaround the world was projected at 40 million to 50 millionacres per year; Mount Pinatubo erupted in the Phillippines—the largest such eruption in the 20th century—causing transientglobal cooling and further erosion of the ozone layer;during the Persian Gulf War, Iraq ignited Kuwaiti oil wells,creating tremendous air and water pollution; and a massivecyclone killed more than 100,000 people in Bangladesh.In 1992, the crater of the asteroid strike purported tohave caused the extinction of the dinosaurs nearly 65 millionyears ago was discovered on the Yucatan Peninsula,and the Rio Earth Summit led to a world treaty on biodiversity.Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) production was officiallybanned by the end of 1995; companies such as Forma Scientificadvertised the first non-CFC refrigerants just in time.And in late 1997, 160 nations reached consensus on a globalwarming accord in Kyoto, Japan, much to the distress ofmany American industrialists, scientists, and politicians(for example, Willis Witters of the Washington Times). Also,according to meteorologists cited in The Washington Post,1998 was the hottest year on record (J. Warrick, The WashingtonPost, Dec. 18, 1998, p. A12).As a bottom line, the environmental technology market wasexpected to reach $500 billion worldwide by the year 2000.New Laws and RegulationsNot coincidentally, despite some successes at deregulation,even more regulations were applied to the chemical industry.EPA continued to be at the forefront of this issue. In 1991,the Clean Air Act identified 189 compounds in air as toxic,and EPA estimated that 20% of the five million undergroundpetroleum storage tanks in the United States were leaking.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also continuedto influence and regulate. In 1990, the Nutritional Labelingand Education Act made FDA-regulated food labelinga requirement on supermarket shelves. In 1992, the FDA declareda moratorium on silicone breast implants; this moratoriumled to successful legal suits and the bankruptcy ofDow-Corning. In 1996, the Food Quality Protection Act establishednew safety standards for pesticides in all foods,both raw and processed (in part to replace the DelaneyClause), and the FDA established fast-track approval for cancerdrugs similar to its program for acquired immune deficiencysyndrome (AIDS) drugs.Globalization especially led to new and complex regulatoryrequirements for operating in a world market. Highlightingcompliance with the International Standards Organization(ISO) became the thing to do in the 1990s, because proclaimingcompliance with local rules was a thing of the past. Onead from Analytical Products Group stated, “We’re in compliance.Aren’t we?” Many companies advertised their compliancewith ISO 9000, 9001, and 9002; many simply put anISO-certified or ISO-registered logo in their ads. ISO 14000,designed for environmental management and life-cycle assessment,debuted in 1996.EPA, of course, still retained its clout in the United States:Restek Corp., for example, advertised that its Rtx-CLPesticidescolumn rapidly analyzed “all 22 pesticides in EPAMethod 8081 in less than 25 minutes.” In 1996, a record numberof EPA enforcement actions were taken. In 1997, EPAchanged its proposed air monitoring regulations to includeCompliance Assistance Monitoring and “Any Credible Evidence,”which threatened industry with new lawsuits asmuch as it freed them of regulatory strictures.Standardization, of course, was critical with new regulations.In 1995, the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation(A2LA) set chemical standards for analysis thatwould prove acceptable to both EPA and ISO 9001 as a certifyingthird-party agency; by 1994, it became the only agencydeemed acceptable for such certification. In 1995, the NationalEnvironmental Laboratory Accreditation Conference(NELAC) convened to bring together industry, government,and academic laboratories interested in receiving accreditation.The director of NELAC also became the director of theNational Environmental Laboratory Accreditation Program(NELAP) with a mandate to accredit laboratories according tostandards set by the EPA.As a side note, in 1997 the National Association of Manufacturersclaimed that the Occupational Safety and HealthAdministration (OSHA) was neither kinder nor gentler, becausepaperwork violations ranked number one.Research and DevelopmentR&D funding by American corporations fell precipitously inthe 1990s as management became more short-term orientedand risk averse. This corporate economic conservatismwas detailed in the Feb. 6, 1995, issue of Chemical & EngineeringNews and was a logical outcome of the economicdownturn. Life sciences helped offset the R&D declinesomewhat. In 1993, pharmaceutical companies outspentchemical companies in R&D even as general basic research’spercentage of the funding pie continued a 20-year decline.In 1994, the National Science Foundation (NSF) establishedsix new engineering research centers (ERCs) to focus ontechnologies to enable innovation in industry. In 1995, theDepartment of Defense (DOD) established a DOD industrycost-sharing program called the Technology ReinvestmentProgram (TRP), one of several ways to keep up defensespending while attempting to find a mutually accommodatingpeace dividend. But still, with generalized governmentcutbacks, total R&D in the United States was deemed virtuallystagnant. More, deeper cutbacks in government fundingwere projected [C&EN, 1995, 73(35)].Universities had their own problems. In 1992, NicholasDarby, a Dow Chemical Company research manager, summarizedthe situation: “ Leadership in many branches of chemistryresides outside the traditional academic boundaries.In many areas, industrial laboratories have assumed theleadership. Other academic departments, such as biochemistry,genetics, microbiology, chemical engineering, andeven mathematics, have stolen a march in other fields ofchemistry” [TCAW 1992, 1(5)].Much of the latter was, no doubt, due to the increasingimportance of biotechnology and the biomedical field. Inanother attempt to attract private dollars in the 1990s,biotechnology institutes to foster university–industry researchbecame even more common.Biology RulesLife sciences and biotech became increasingly more importantas the decade progressed. A Shimadzu ad in 1996 symbolizedwell the zeitgeist of the chemical instrumentationworld in the 1990s by combining DNA, a world map, a femalescientist, a graphic analytical trace, pharmaceuticals, laboratorychemicals, a woodland stream, and the ISO 9000 into onepicture. The only thing missing was the computer—whichwas obliquely supplied in the Brinkmann 1996 laboratory92 Made to Measure March 1999 http://pubs.acs.org
Page 1 and 2: Todd Kiraly, Westbound Publications
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