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Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Playing politics with kids and cancer
What low won't they stoop to? The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs has once again been playing around with the technical analyses that inform regulatory protections, rigging the tools so that they lead to weaker protections that do more to save corporate profits than to protect the people.

Or, in this case, protect children from cancer. EPA has been working for some time on guidelines for the risk assessments that shape EPA's regulation of cancer-causing chemicals, specifically the increased risk of cancer that children face because of their particular vulnerabilities. In the new guidelines just released on children's cancer risk, the EPA determined for the first time that infants and toddlers are 10 times more likely to get cancer from certain chemicals than adults.

Good news, right? EPA is doing its job, right? But the White House had to interfere. Check out the latest from NRDC:

EPA's guidelines acknowledge, for the first time, that children under 2 years of age are 10 times more likely to get cancer from certain chemicals than adults who are similarly exposed. But the White House Office of Management and Budget undermined that acknowledgment by inserting language in the guidelines that make it easy for industry to block EPA from following them when assessing cancer-causing chemicals....
The guidelines had to go through several rigorous scientific reviews before they were released today.
EPA's draft guidelines, including the children's supplemental, first passed through an internal agency review two years ago. The agency's Scientific Advisory Board reviewed the guidelines and agreed with EPA's conclusion that early-life exposures to chemical pollutants increase cancer risk. The board recommended finalizing EPA's draft guidelines as written.
The guidelines then went to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for scrutiny, where they languished until today. Out of public view, OMB substantially weakened the guidelines by adding language that will allow the chemical industry to contest policy decisions more easily, according to NRDC. Specifically, OMB inserted language allowing for "expert elicitation," opening the door for any outside party to challenge the way EPA applies the guidelines to assess chemicals. Such a challenge could slow the agency down for months, if not years, in making a decision on regulating a cancer-causing chemical, according to NRDC. OMB further weakened the guidelines by adding language requiring any EPA cancer evaluation to meet the standards of the Data Quality Act, a law designed by tobacco industry consultants to quash protective regulations. By opening the process to relentless industry challenges, said Dr. Sass, OMB set the bar so high that children will not be adequately protected from many cancer-causing chemicals.
"The White House took what would have been strong guidelines to protect our children from cancer and turned them into an industry punching bag," said Dr. Sass. "Chemical companies will be able to pummel any new safeguard to death. The chemical industry wins, our children lose."

Posted by Robert Shull, 03:47:11 PM

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Pesticide info: too pesky a burden for business?
As required by law, EPA calls on makers of pesticides to report on the "composition, toxicity, potential human exposure, environmental properties and ecological effects, and efficacy" of pesticides, so that the agency can "assess the human health and environmental risks associated with the product" and "ensure that pesticide residues in food meet the 'reasonable certainty of no harm' risk standard." We need to make sure that we aren't poisoning ourselves with pesticides, and an important component of our protection is the information that pesticide makers must disclose about the pesticides they send out into the public.

Given the importance and necessity of this information, what would you think about EPA reducing the quality and quantity of pesticide information in order to save a buck or two for big business? That's exactly what the White House is ordering EPA to consider. OIRA is calling on EPA to "identify and consider cost-effective ... alternatives to its current data requirements," with an eye for reducing "the amount of data required to support a new registration" and changing "approaches to toxicity testing" in order to be "more cost-effective." OIRA is pushing, specifically, a model created by the International Life Sciences Institute -- specifically, a technical committee whose membership includes BASF Corporation, Bayer CropScience, Dow AgroSciences, DuPont Crop Protection, Monsanto Company, and Syngenta Ltd. OIRA wants this new model, when completed, to be given "priority consideration as an alternative to the proposed data requirements."

The most recent revision to the data requirements was recently approved by OIRA subject to change. OIRA coincidentally also held a meeting with industry reps to discuss the current data requirements for pesticide makers.

Interesting side note: OIRA concedes that EPA will have to jump through many hoops if (when) it decides to adopt the industry-favored model. The usual -- notice and comment, stakeholder participation, etc. Added to that list is something unusual: "efforts to minimize duplicative burdens from inconsistent international requirements." Does this note herald an age of reduced information provided to the American people, on the grounds that the patchwork of information requirements in other countries somehow suffices to inform the American public about the hazards of pesticides?

Posted by Robert Shull, 02:46:11 PM

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

EPA To Roll Back Lead-Based Paint Protection
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) recently released internal EPA documents that show that Environmental Protection Agency acting administrator, Stephen Johnson, plans to replace a regulation under development by EPA requiring certification of construction workers renovating buildings that may contain lead paint with a voluntary compliance standard. This move to a voluntary standard significantly weakens the regulation and puts more workers and children at risk for lead exposure from dust and debris. From the press release:

By law, EPA is supposed to require that certified contractors using workers trained in lead-safe practices do all remodeling in building constructed before 1978. Under the Toxic Substances Control Act, the deadline for EPA to adopt these “regulations to renovation or remodeling activities” was October 28, 1996. Although behind schedule, EPA continued to develop regulations through 2003. In 2004, however, then-Deputy and now-Acting Administrator Stephen Johnson moved to scrap plans for renovation regulations and instead opt for a yet to be developed voluntary approach, according to agency records. Earlier this month, President Bush nominated Johnson to become EPA Administrator.
Johnson made his decision despite EPA’s own analyses showing the renovation regulations had a net economic benefit of at least $2.73 billion per year. These internal analyses also showed that –
An estimated 1.4 million children under age 7 residing in some 4.9 million households are at risk of lead exposure due to unsafe repair and renovations;
The renovation regulations could be expected to prevent at least 28,000 lead-related illnesses each year, thereby preventing $1.6 billion in medical costs and economic losses annually; and
The additional cost to homeowners would average $116 per interior renovation and $42 for exterior work.

Renovation of older homes is the principal cause of exposure to lead by children in the United States.

Original Regulation Under Development by EPA

Voluntary Standard

Posted by Genevieve Smith, 11:33:32 AM

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

EPA Ignores Cost-Benefit Analysis on Mercury Rule
From the Washington Post:

When the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a rule last week to limit mercury emissions from U.S. power plants, officials emphasized that the controls could not be more aggressive because the cost to industry already far exceeded the public health payoff.
What they did not reveal is that a Harvard University study paid for by the EPA, co-authored by an EPA scientist and peer-reviewed by two other EPA scientists had reached the opposite conclusion.
That analysis estimated health benefits 100 times as great as the EPA did, but top agency officials ordered the finding stripped from public documents, said a staff member who helped develop the rule. Acknowledging the Harvard study would have forced the agency to consider more stringent controls, said environmentalists and the study's author.

EPA officials stripped the unfavorable findings from the public record. If the findings had been used, it may have forced EPA to adopt a more stringent standard. Proponents of cost-benefit analysis argue that it is a neutral tool necessary to reign in over-zealous regulation, but as seen with the mercury regulation, cost-benefit analysis is nothing more than a political tool, used by the agency only when it favors their political objectives. Read more about how cost-benefit analysis is not a neutral tool.

Adding to the case for a more stringent regulation than the one promulgated by EPA, the LA Times recently reported that mercury may also be linked to autism. A study in Texas found that districts with the highest rates of mercury toxins in the environment also had the highest rate of autism in schools. "The study, which will appear in the journal Health & Place, found that for every 1,000 pounds of mercury released into the environment, there was a 43% increase in special education services and a 61% increase in the autism rate." Read more about EPA's mercury regulation.

Posted by Genevieve Smith, 11:30:18 AM

Thursday, March 10, 2005

Timber Industry Rewrites CA Forest Plan
A new California forest management plan that would triple the annual timber harvest from national forests in the Sierra Nevada was (surprise, surprise) written by industry, according to a press release from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. A California Forest Association lawsuit would install the timber industry's deforestation plan and insulate the plan from further legal challenges through a settlement. PEER has filed in court to intervene in the settlement. From the press release:

“The Forest Service is now run by a former timber industry lobbyist, Mark Rey, whose mission, before he returns to the private sector, is to radically undercut sustainable forest policies,” stated California PEER Director Karen Schambach. “The years of work that went into developing the Sierra Framework of 2001, a model plan of which the Forest Service should have been proud, were chucked out the window with barely a wink and a nod.”
In 2004, the Bush Administration scrapped the Sierra Framework of 2001, covering 11.5 million acres, in its entirety. According to the declaration filed by PEER, the Forest Service –
Had an “open door” policy for the timber industry in developing the 2004 rewrite. The Forest Service conducted no public hearings, in contrast to the 2001 plan which was produced after 60 public hearings;

Repeatedly overruled its own specialists and misused data in order to justify unsupportable timber harvest levels; and

Drove its scientists who disagreed with the increased logging targets out of the agency. In one instance, a specialist found himself blackballed from obtaining employment as a private consultant.

Read PEER’s motion to intervene: http://www.peer.org/docs/ca/2005_28_2_intervention.pdf

See PEER’s declaration in support of the motion: http://www.peer.org/docs/ca/2005_28_2_schambach_filing.pdf

Posted by Genevieve Smith, 02:23:12 PM

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

EPA's Rigged Use of Cost-Benefit Analysis
EPA's use of cost-benefit analysis in developing proposed mercury control regulations was deeply flawed, according to a GAO report released yesterday. The report examined how EPA used different variables when comparing different proposals so that the cost-benefit analysis was weighted towards the industry-preferred cap-and-trade method. GAO identified "four major shortcomings in the economic analysis underlying EPA's proposed mercury control options:"

"First, while Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance directs agencies to identify a policy that produces the greatest net benefits, EPA's analysis is of limited use in doing so because the agency did not consistently analyze the options or provide an estimate of the total costs and benefits of each option. For example, . . . EPA analyzed the effects of the technology-based option by itself, but analyzed the effects of the cap-and-trade option alongside those of another proposed rule affecting power plants, the Clean Air Interstate Rule (the interstate rule), without separately identifying the effects of the cap-and-trade option. As a result, EPA's estimates are not comparable and are of limited use for assessing economic trade-offs . . . . To provide comparable estimates, EPA would have to analyze each option alone and in combination with the interstate rule."
"Second, EPA did not document some of its analysis or provide information on how changes in the proposed level of mercury control would affect the cost-and-benefit estimates for the technology-based option, as it did for the cap-and-trade option."
"Third, EPA did not estimate the value of the health benefits directly related to decreased mercury emissions and instead estimated only some secondary benefits, such as decreased exposure to harmful fine particles. However, EPA has asked for comments on a methodology to estimate the benefits directly related to mercury."
"Fourth, EPA did not analyze some of the key uncertainties underlying its cost-and benefit estimates."

Read the full report or the highlights.

Posted by Genevieve Smith, 11:24:39 AM

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