GAO SAYS EPA TOO LAX IN MONITORING CFC SUBSTITUTES

The government has failed to ensure safe testing of alternatives for ozone-depleting chemicals, and declined to take steps to control substitutes that are proved dangerous, congressional investigators report. The General Accounting Office, in a sharp rebuke to the Environmental Protection Agency, said the agency has been too lenient with the chemical industry in the nation's rush to find substitutes for chlorofluorocarbons. EPA has refused to demand unpublished test results, and declined to institute measures that would quickly restrict use of substitutes believed dangerous to humans or the environment, the GAO said.