1. USEPA National Radon Update
David Rowson, Director
USEPA Indoor Environments Division
Hello and thank you to CRPCD and AARST for hosting this meeting today to build partnerships, accelerate the transfer of information and best practices, and deepen collaboration across the radon community.
I’m very pleased to be here and for EPA to again be participating robustly in this conference with a team of about 15 EPA personnel from our HQ and Regional offices

2. Overview of Remarks FY 16 & 17 Budget Current EPA Radon Priorities
Collaboration Among States/Tribes, Industry and Partners
Very brief overview of topics I’ll cover.

3. FY 16 and17 Budget Congress appropriated SIRG funding for FY16
FY16 House Report “Template” due from SIRG states and tribes by December 30, 2016
Expect FY17 Continuing Resolution (CR)
Anticipate Congress will appropriate SIRG funding for FY17
SIRG
Congress appropriated $8M in State and Tribal Indoor Radon Grant funding FY 2016, as they have continued to do for the past five years even as the President’s Budget did not include this funding request.
AARST, CanSar, CRRR and others maintained an active presence on Capitol Hill and were very effective in getting across the message about the importance of radon and continued support for state programs.
The FY2016 Appropriations Bill was accompanied by a House Report ( ) which included several recommendations specific to the FY16 SIRG funds.
The Report recommended that EPA focus SIRG funding in three broad areas:
1. Awareness, education and outreach to the medical community, and inclusion of radon within state cancer control plans (CCPs),
2. Testing and remediation of schools in high-risk radon areas,
3. Education and technical support on industry best practices and standards, and adoption of radon in build ing codes.
In response to this guidance from the Appropriations Committee, which EPA takes very seriously, EPA is requiring that all States and Tribes that receive FY16 SIRG funding report on work they are doing in these three areas.
This guidance does not require States to initiate new work in these areas with FY2016 funding – although they certainly can. Rather, recipients are required to report on work that is underway or planned in these areas.
To simplify and streamline that reporting, EPA developed a template for States and Tribes to complete and submit by December 30, 2016.
Next year, once we've assessed the FY2016 state and tribal activities in these areas. we may further phase-in the House Report recommendations and further promote alignment with the National Radon Action Plan priority strategies.
Information on the template is available on our website.
FY17 Budget
For FY17, our most current understanding is that Congress is likely to pass a Continuing Resolution to fund the Federal government from October 1 until mid-December.
We won’t know for certain until a final budget is passed, but we anticipate Congress will fund SIRG in FY17 since the appropriations committees included SIRG funding in their mark-up of the President’s Budget.

4. Current EPA Priorities
Driving Institutional Requirements
Federal Radon Action Plan
National Radon Action Plan
Standards & Codes
Radon and Weatherization
Providing Technical Assistance
NGO Partners, States, Tribes
National Reference function at NAREL
Collaboration with states and tribes
Data systems and updated numbers
Tracking national progress
In FY17, EPA expects to continue to focus on driving adoption of institutional requirements to embed and sustain radon action in finance and housing policy and to provide technical assistance to states, tribes, industry and the public through our headquarters, regional and lab programs.
We closed out the Federal Radon Action Plan in February of 2016, completing 29 of 33 commitments in the plan, sparking new attention and action on radon across the Federal government, which, alongside new education and policy efforts by industry and the states, has lead to increased radon action across the country.
As you heard earlier this morning, we are now working in partnership with the American Lung Association, AARST, CRCPD, ASHI and a number of other NGOs, as well as our federal partners at HUD and CDC to carry out a broader National Radon Action Plan with the goal of reducing radon levels in 5M homes and saving 3200 lives annually by 2020.
We’ll continue to invest in supporting the development of consensus standards & codes to promote and steer quality radon practices in the field and I’ll highlight on the next slide the one’s that have been recently completed.
We’re also continuing to work with colleagues at DOE to promote a way to effectively deal with radon during home weatherization retrofits.
As you may know, in the wake of data from a Weatherization and IAQ study DOE conducted which found an average rise of 0.4 pCi/L of radon when homes were weatherized, DOE changed the way it weatherizes homes, improving foundation sealing practices and ensuring the homes meet minimum ventilation rates in order to try to mitigate the rise in radon levels.
With DOE, we are co-funding an important study to look at this new way radon is being addressed during weatherizations funded by DOEs WAP.
There will be a presentation this afternoon, in part on the new study, by Dr. Paul Franseco.
In addition to DOE and EPA working on this issue, CRCPD and State weatherization program representatives have now met twice this year to surface opportunities for collaboration between state radon and state weatherization programs.
Technical Assistance
In addition to the partnerships and funding we provide to State and Tribes, we’ll continue to work in partnership with a range of NGOs.
On this front, in about November, we will be issuing our next solicitation of grant proposals, called Requests for Assistance proposals, for grant funds that would begin in FY18.
Our National Air and Radiation Environmental Lab – NAREL – in Montgomery, AL expects to have the National Radon Reference Capability and Radon Intercomparison Program operational by late this winter.
NAREL is preserving the essential, governmental function as a national reference for intercomparison and will still maintain the NIST-traceable reference.
Collaboration with States and Tribes
In addition to our national partnership with CRCPD and the active partnerships our Regions have with their states, I want to highlight some outstanding work done through tribal partnerships this past year.
In particular, I want to highlight the partnership between CRCPD and Tribal representatives at the National Tribal Forum in Buffalo this Spring to offer training to Build Tribal Technical Capacity at the Forum. Special thanks to Josh Kerber, Bruce Snead, Mansel Nelson, Brandy Toft, Bob Haskin, Daniel Wiggins Jr., and Twa-le Swan-Abrahamson and others who helped make the meeting and training exceptional.
EPA will also continue to invest in a range of data systems to promote the efficiency and effectiveness of radon efforts across the nation.
We will continue to estimate the rate of radon mitigations and RRNC installations and look for a way to improve tracking those results.
You’ll hear from EPA’s David Pawel tomorrow about work he is doing to update and make contemporary our radon risk estimates and cost-benefit analyses.
We are also working with CDC to increase the number of states participating in CDC’s Environmental Public Health Tracking Network and CDC is also working w/us to conduct a cost-effectiveness study on state radon policies.

5. Standards and Codes Develop state-of-the-art radon standards
Region 7
Stakeholder Meeting
Standards and Codes
Develop state-of-the-art radon standards
Collaborated with ANSI/AARST on five new consensus standards:
Performance Specification Standard of Practice for Radon Measurement Devices
Soil Gas Mitigation Standards for Existing Homes
New Construction of Schools/Large Buildings
Quality Assurance for Radon Measurement Systems
Measurement of Radon in Water
You heard a very nice overview from Jane Malone this morning about the work that is happening to promote sound radon practices in building codes.
We are also working to promote best practices and ensure the quality of radon services through consensus industry standards.
You can see here a list of the five standards that have most recently come to fruition and represent a profound amount of thoughtful work by a number of people in this room today.
Performance Specification standard of practice for radon measurement devices
Soil Gas Mitigation Standards for Existing Homes
New Construction of schools/Large Buildings
Quality Assurance for Radon Measurement Systems
Measurement of Radon in Water

6. From Federal Radon Action Plan to National Radon Action Plan
ALA, AARST, CRCPD, other NGOs and Feds launched NRAP 2015
Met quarterly in 2016 to coordinate action for priority strategy areas
Developing markers for tracking progress in each priority strategy
Engaging new partners
Increased engagement with state cancer control plans
As I mentioned earlier, we are now actively engaged in a public-private partnership, the National Radon Action Plan, which you heard about from an outstanding panel this morning.
I want to highlight the active work happening there to pursue more highly leveraged and higher impact strategies.

7. NRAP Priority Strategies
Embed radon risk reduction as standard practice across the housing and finance sector
Provide financial incentives and support for radon risk reduction
Promote the use of certified radon services and build capacity of radon industry
Build broad public attention for the radon issue
Embed radon risk reduction as standard practice across the housing and finance sector – banking and mortgage policy and real estate transactions
Provide financial incentives and support for radon risk reduction – through tax and loan programs
Promote the use of certified radon services and build capacity of radon industry to be able to respond with quality services in a growing market
Build broad public attention for the radon issue – including in the medical and cancer prevention communities

8. Accreditation of Credentialing Bodies
National Certification
Third Party Involvement
Phased approach
Interim Plan
The last stream of work I want to highlight is around our plan to renew our role in accrediting radon credentialing organizations.
As many of you know well, as the demand for radon services has grown in the past several years – due to initiatives at the national, state and local level by many in the radon community and in this room – new players have seen new radon business opportunities in the market.
As the lead federal agency responsible for protecting public health from indoor radon, we believe there is a re-emerging consumer protection and, in fact, public health protection role for EPA to help ensure continued quality and integrity of radon services provided nationwide.
As most of you know, EPA used to run national proficiency programs, which we later privatized, responsible for ensuring the ongoing proficiency of radon service providers.
We are now exploring options for how we may renew some role in promoting the ongoing proficiency of radon services to the public.
We are in the beginning stages of this work so I don’t have details to share at this point, but I do want to leave you with a general sense of where we think we are headed.
While we don’t have the path mapped out yet, we do know that EPA activity in this area will look different from the proficiency program we operated in the 80s and 90s. It will take into account the current state of industry and the advances in capacity of both the industry and industry credentialing bodies since when EPA played a more active role in this area.
We anticipate that we would engage a third party entity to run the accreditation process of credentialing bodies – both those currently in the market that want to remain there as well as others that may want to enter the market.
We anticipate the review, evaluation and accreditation of credentialing bodies would be based on criteria EPA would develop through some consultative process.
This work will take time to complete – at this stage our estimate is a minimum of one year, possibly two.
In the interim, we are considering the option – until the new accreditation process is available – of requiring states that receive SIRG funding only refer to providers certified through a state licensing process or by NRPP or NRSB, the two credentialing bodies currently recognized by EPA.

9. Radon Results- The Bottom Line
Most recent data, 2013 and 2014, shows highest testing and mitigation rates on record
Achieved through higher impact strategies, collaboration and partnership
State laws
Financial, banking and real estate policies
Federal guidance and policy
Standards of practice
I’d like to close by thanking you for being a part of the radon risk reduction effort and for being here this week to sharpen our tools, energize our approach and find new ways of working.
As a result of your and others’ work, radon action rates are increasing.
More highly leveraged strategies to supplement the outreach and education efforts we are all carrying out is helping to accelerate progress.
But there is much more to do. I’m looking forward to spending the next few days engaged with you sharing the latest science and policy strategies so that we can accelerate the transfer and adoption of those strategies to protect public health.
Thank you.