EDF Health

A parting gift from Dourson: A trove of revealing emails

By / Published: December 15, 2017

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

[Use this link to see all of our posts on Dourson.]

Earlier this week, the New York Times reported on the withdrawal of the nomination of Michael Dourson to head the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) chemical safety office – which we applauded as a win for public health.  The Times article mentioned and provided a link to a 400-page trove of emails to and from Dourson that were obtained through a FOIA request filed in August by Greenpeace to the University of Cincinnati, where Dourson previously worked.

The emails shine a rare spotlight on a network, of which Dourson and the American Chemistry Council (ACC) are a part, that operates largely out of public view.  It involves a coordinated effort between the chemical industry and its private and academic consultants to generate science that invariably supports the safety of the industry’s chemicals, and pushes back against any regulatory and academic science that indicates otherwise.  The emails make for very interesting reading, if you can skip through the myriad emails about scheduling calls and meetings (which make up the bulk of any of our inboxes, I suspect).

To pique your interest, let me start with one email relating to Dourson’s nomination.   Read More »

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Is there no limit to industry’s overreach and hubris when it comes to new chemicals under TSCA?

By / Published: December 12, 2017

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

We’ve already blogged about how changes the agency is making to its reviews of new chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) are illegal as well as bad policy.  But an industry letter and attachment added last week to EPA’s new chemicals docket shows the chemical industry isn’t done yet in seeking to eviscerate the program.

The letter and position statement were submitted to Jeffery Morris, Director of EPA’s Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) by something called the TSCA New Chemicals Coalition (NCC).

They raise a multitude of red flags.

The NCC is a creation of the industry law firm Bergeson & Campbell (B&C). The letter to Morris describes NCC as “a group of representatives from over 20 companies that have come together to identify new chemical notification issues under the amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) and to work collaboratively with you and your team to address them.”

First red flag:  Nowhere are the 20+ companies identified, not in the letter or associated position statement, nor on B&C’s web pages for NCC.  Such secrecy always sets off an alarm when it comes to the chemical industry’s history of forming misleading front groups and coalitions.  Why don’t the companies want their identities known?

Second red flag:  The NCC letter and position statement claim that “OSHA has in place an extensive regulatory scheme, as well as enforcement mechanisms, governing chemical exposure in the workplace” and refers to the “robust nature of the existing OSHA regulatory program” and its “overarching and comprehensive requirements” that apply in the workplace.  Now, anyone outside of industry readily acknowledges that OSHA’s ability to adequately address workplace exposures has been decimated over time – through sustained industry efforts on many fronts, including mounting legal challenges to OSHA’s authority and successfully pressing for reduction after reduction in its budget and staffing.  Those attacks continue today, and if anything have accelerated under the Trump Administration.

Why then, you may wonder, is NCC writing to the director of EPA’s TSCA office to tout OSHA’s sweeping authority over workplace chemical exposures?  By now you may be getting a sense of where this is headed … .   Read More »

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EDF comments at EPA’s public meeting on new chemical reviews question the credibility and legality of recent changes

By / Published: December 6, 2017

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

EPA held a public meeting today to present information on major changes it is making to its review of new chemicals under last year’s reforms made to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) by the Lautenberg Act.

EPA provided brief opportunities for stakeholders to provide comments.  Two of us from EDF – I, and my colleague Robert Stockman, Senior Attorney – gave oral comments at the meeting.  We are providing those comments here in written form.[pullquote]Through these actions, many clearly contrary to the law, EPA is returning the new chemicals program to its dark ages under the old TSCA, making it again into a black box within which EPA acts as if its only stakeholder is the chemical industry.[/pullquote]

My comments are available here.

Robert Stockman’s comments are available here.

As the comments make clear, EDF believes the changes EPA is making and discussed today are both contrary to the requirements of the new TSCA and represent a retreat from the credible, transparent and accountable new chemicals program Congress sought to establish under the new law.

As I noted in my comments:  “Through these actions, many clearly contrary to the law, EPA is returning the new chemicals program to its dark ages under the old TSCA, making it again into a black box within which EPA acts as if its only stakeholder is the chemical industry.”

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Senate funding proposal to eliminate EPA’s IRIS program is a public health debacle

By Jennifer McPartland / Published: November 21, 2017

Jennifer McPartland, Ph.D., is a Senior Scientist with the Health Program.

[pullquote]Among other things, IRIS chemical reviews are used to inform clean-up decisions at Superfund and other contaminated sites, set standards to ensure clean drinking water, assess health risks from toxic air emissions, and evaluate health risks of chemicals in commerce. These are all legally mandated activities stipulated under different laws to ensure the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the lands where we work, live, and play are safe.[/pullquote]Yesterday, the Senate Committee on Appropriations majority posted their version of the FY2018 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies appropriations bill online (see bill here and accompanying explanatory statement here; see the minority’s summary response here). The legislation lays out spending measures for a number of agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  In releasing the bill yesterday, the majority has bypassed the amendment and markup process.

Among other cuts, the bill eliminates the EPA Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) Program. At best a small fraction of its responsibilities – and only one-third of its funding – would be re-allocated to the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP).

If realized, this short-sighted move would be a debacle in terms of protecting public health from harmful chemical exposures.

[A short fact sheet on IRIS and implications of eliminating it is available here.]

Read More »

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“Tore apart our happy home”: Another chemical embraced by Dourson and Beck is contaminating the drinking water supply in Memphis and across the country

By / Published: November 14, 2017

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

[Use this link to see all of our posts on Dourson.]

That lyric from a Chuck Berry signature song, “Memphis, Tennessee,” takes on a haunting new meaning in light of the latest evidence of contamination of the Memphis Sand aquifer, a main drinking water source for the city, with the highly toxic solvent tetrachloroethylene (also known as perchloroethylene (PCE), or more commonly PERC).  Lest there be any doubt about the human toll this is taking, read this local woman’s heart-wrenching story.

The source of PERC in this case is a former dry cleaning business that is now a hazardous waste site, and because of Sharri Schmidt’s case is now nominated to become a Superfund site.  The chemical is still widely used in dry cleaning as well as in many other uses.  It’s a probable human carcinogen, and is also toxic to the brain, kidney and liver.[pullquote]As I write, Dourson and Beck are making decisions that will help determine how the risks of PERC and other chemicals are assessed and whether or not they need to be regulated.[/pullquote]

Unfortunately, Schmidt is far from alone.  PERC contamination of drinking water is widespread in this country.  To name just a few, have a look at these stories from towns and cities in North Carolina, Indiana, Nevada, Arizona, Montana, and New York.

Data compiled by the Environmental Working Group from local water utilities shows that PERC was detected in tap water samples taken by water utilities in 44 states that serve 19 million people.

One might hope and think that affected local communities could turn to the US Environmental Protection Agency for help in such situations.  The sad truth is that under the Trump administration this may well not be the case.  Trump has nominated Michael Dourson to lead EPA’s chemical safety office, who, despite the fact that he’s yet to be confirmed, is already working at EPA as a special advisor to Administrator Scott Pruitt.  And Pruitt has already installed as a political appointee to that office Nancy Beck, who until May was a senior official at the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the chemical industry’s main trade association.

So what do Dourson and Beck have to do with PERC?   Read More »

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To be true to your new directive, Mr. Pruitt, you need to fire Michael Dourson today

By / Published: October 31, 2017

Richard Denison, Ph.D., is a Lead Senior Scientist.

[Use this link to see all of our posts on Dourson.]

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt issued a directive today that prevents independent scientists who receive research grants from EPA from serving on any EPA advisory panels.  Wholly unaddressed by the directive is any counterpart prohibition on scientists funded by industries with conflicts of interest from serving as EPA advisors.  [pullquote]If Pruitt firmly believes that receipt of EPA funding is a basis for disqualifying a scientist from advising the agency, then he need look no further for someone to purge than his own recently named “advisor to the Administrator” on chemicals, Michael Dourson.[/pullquote]

When it comes to advice the agency receives, the core concern over the need to avoid conflicts of interest is this:  Is advice tainted because the entity employing and paying the advisor stands to gain or lose financially from the agency decision that is under advisement?  Say, for example, EPA selected as an advisor a consultant to Koch Industries who it paid for work that concluded the company’s releases into the environment of the petcoke generated by its facilities are safe.  A reasonable person would have a basis to believe that Koch could benefit financially from the advice its consultant might provide the agency.  In contrast, how does EPA stand to benefit financially from the results of research conducted by an EPA-funded scientist?  The simple answer is, it doesn’t.

Now let’s look at it from the perspective of the scientist receiving the funding.  Pruitt’s directive is based on the outlandish premise that EPA funds research in order to find problems it can then regulate, and hence that an EPA-funded researcher has an incentive to find a problem in order to better ensure continued EPA funding.  The claim is that the advice offered by that researcher would be “pre-tainted” toward supporting EPA policy decisions that drive regulation.  This theory that imagines a grand conspiracy between researchers and the agency is inherently flawed and unfounded.   Read More »

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