Arsenic and old laws. (Updates).

In one of his first duties as President, George W. Bush suspended and put under review President Clinton's last-minute proposal to lower arsenic levels in drinking water from 50 parts per billion (ppb) to 10 ppb, setting off a flurry of protests from environmental groups (see "Scorched Earth Policy," May/June 2001). But now the EPA's review is over, and the Clinton standard will go into effect, as scheduled, in 2006.

Environmentalists responded with relief. The National Academy of Sciences has warned that people who drink water with 50-ppb arsenic levels have a one in 100 chance of dying from cancer. Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope was an early critic of the administration's tactics, calling the delay in implementing the standard "an unsafe, irresponsible decision that pleases the mining industry at our families' expense." Still, many groups such as the Natural Resources Defense Council say the standard should be as low as the three ppb recommended by the World Health Organization in 1999. CONTACT: EPA, [phone], www.epa.gov.