Correction and New Information on EPA's Children's Health Report - September 30, 2002 Vol. 3 No. 20

September 30, 2002 Vol. 3 No. 20:

Published: 09/30/2002

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Correction and New Information on EPA's Children's Health Report

In the September 3, 2002, issue of the Watcher, we reported that OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) requested to review an EPA report on children’s health prior to publication. Further conversation with EPA staff clarified that although OIRA participated in the review, it was OMB budget staff that made the request. We have revised our original article to reflect this new understanding.

As part of this review, EPA received feedback on its draft report during an interagency meeting on August 28 attended by staff from the White House, OMB, OIRA, and other agencies. The names of participants and the content of the discussion are not publicly available because the review falls outside of an official rulemaking, which has formal transparency requirements.

Such a review by OMB of a purely technical document, which contains no policy or regulatory action, is to our knowledge unprecedented, and raises questions about potential political motives. OMB, after all, has no scientific expertise on the environmental factors affecting children’s health.