The White House Office of Management and Budget opposed EPA's efforts to clean up a Montana town contaminated by asbestos, according to a new report. EPA wanted to declare a public health emergency in the town of Libby in order to compel the removal of attic insulation threatening thousands of residents and to extend medical care to residents at risk.

The report, prepared by a team of congressional staff led by the office of Montana Sen. Max Baucus (D), says, "EPA's decision not to declare a public health emergency in 2002 has had a profound and lasting impact on the people of Libby as they continue to struggle with disease and death from asbestos contamination." Although EPA maintains it made the decision, OMB may have pressured it to do so.

Why would OMB oppose the declaration of a public health emergency in Libby? Because it could mean other parts of the country would benefit too. In 2002, EPA convened a meeting with OMB to discuss the situation. "At that meeting, OMB expressed concern about EPA's imminent declaration of a public health emergency because of the precedent it would set for other sets with Libby asbestos and the public concern it could cause."

In other words, the asbestos products sickening Libby residents made it outside of Libby, and other Americans could be at risk. If the government helps Libby residents, it may have to help everyone else…perish the thought.

An OMB official also urged EPA to add language to a memo outlining the cleanup strategy saying, "…activities at this site set no precedent for possible future removals from other locations," according to the report.

EPA used a legal loophole to remove the insulation from Libby homes anyway. But there were other consequences to the agency's refusal to declare an emergency:

The residents of Libby were deprived of medical care from the federal government to which they were legally entitled. A public health emergency existed in Libby in 2002. In cases of a public health emergency caused by exposure to toxic substances, exposed individuals are entitled to medical care from the federal government and other medical assistance as appropriate under the circumstances. Consequently, had a public health emergency been declared, medical care would have been provided by the federal government to the resident of Libby exposed to asbestos.

The report lists other consequences Libby residents faced as a result of OMB's meddling and EPA's refusal to stand up to it. The report is available here.

The White House has finally given approval to a rule that would protect the North Atlantic right whale, one of the planet's most critically endangered marine species.

Last Monday, September 15, OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs — the White House office in charge of reviewing and editing new regulations — approved the rule "consistent with change" (its most common designation for rules it has reviewed). OIRA had been reviewing the rule since Feb. 20, 2007. Since agencies cannot go forward without OIRA's blessing, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been unable to make substantive progress on the rule for more than one-and-a-half years.

According to the executive order that governs the OIRA review process, OIRA has 90 days to review agency proposals. OIRA, in consultation with the agency, may extend the period once by 30 days. So, under the White House's own rules, OIRA is not supposed to hold up rules for more than 120 days.

OIRA reviewed the right whale rule for 573 days.

During that time, OIRA and other White House offices tried hard to derail NOAA's efforts to protect the species by imposing speed limits on large ships sailing in the Atlantic during certain seasons. The office of Vice President Dick Cheney attacked NOAA's scientific basis for the rule saying, "[W]e have no evidence (i.e., hard data) that lowering the speeds of 'large ships' will actually make a difference."

The White House Council of Economic Advisors even went so far as to rerun statistical models the agency used to come to its determination.

For now, we don't know what the version of the rule OIRA approved looks like. The proposed rule, published way back in June 2006, called for a speed limit of 10 knots up to 30 nautical miles off the coast.

In August, NOAA released an environmental impact statement that may be a precursor to the final regulation. Fortunately, in that document, NOAA maintained the 10 knot limit. Unfortunately, it shrank the protection zone to only 20 nautical miles. A NOAA official acknowledged the agency was considering the change under pressure from the White House and the shipping industry.

Why now? Perhaps the White House is finally standing aside because it wants to move a weaker version of the rule while President Bush is still in office. A future administration may want a more stringent standard that keeps the speed limit and extends the protection area to 30 nautical miles, as under the original proposal.

Who knows what NOAA's plans are now that it controls the rule's destiny once again? Hopefully, it will publish the rule soon in a form most protective of the right whale. After all, fewer than 300 remain, and experts warn that even one more dead female could set the species on an irrevocable path toward extinction. Reg•Watch hopes this drama will soon be over.

The Bush administration will continue to allow perchlorate, a chemical found primarily in rocket fuel, to pollute America's drinking water supply. Perchlorate has been found to disrupt thyroid functions in humans, and can be particularly dangerous for infants and children. Yet, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will pass on an upcoming opportunity to set a new limit for drinking water, according to The Washington Post.

The Post obtained an early copy of EPA's "preliminary regulatory determination" on perchlorate. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has been making significant edits to the document in order to downplay the negative health effects of the chemical, according to the Post. OMB has been reviewing the document since September 4.

From the Post:

The EPA document also finds that bottle-fed infants would be exposed to more than five times the level the National Academy of Sciences deemed safe -- 700 nanograms per kilogram of body weight per day -- if parents mix formula with drinking water containing perchlorate levels of 15 ppb.

OMB officials said during the drafting process that there was "no need" for detailed data to flesh out a table suggesting that infants would be exposed to perchlorate levels above the academy's recommendation.

To determine safe levels of exposure, the administration opted not to use the academy's "reference dose," a formula that includes a tenfold safety factor to protect children and vulnerable populations, and instead used a computer model developed by the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology. EPA officials initially inserted language in the document calling this a "novel approach," but the OMB deleted that language.

This is not the first time OMB has meddled with EPA's efforts to regulate, or not regulate, perchlorate. The Bush White House and the Department of Defense — a major rocket fuel user and, subsequently, perchlorate polluter — have spent years working hard to make sure the Pentagon and defense contractors won't have to clean up their acts. More on that here.