By. Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN)
In a recent poll of scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency, almost 900 scientists — more than half of those responding — indicated they had experienced political interference in their work during the prior five years.
America relies on these scientists to warn of health threats from exposure to toxic chemicals or other environmental pollutants. Political interference with this basic science work puts all Americans at risk.
One example of how EPA's science has become politicized is the Integrated Risk Information System, which is designed to provide a database of science-based estimates of health risk from exposure to toxic chemicals. With only about 480 entries currently in the database and an average of 700 new chemicals coming into the market each year, you might expect EPA to add dozens of new IRIS entries each year. But you'd be wrong.
The administration has effectively put the Office of Management and Budget in charge of the IRIS process. The result of OMB's intervention has been a huge backlog in proposed listings for IRIS. In the last two years, just four new IRIS entries were approved for release. By any fair reading, the IRIS system is effectively broken.
Recent change doesn't help
Just last month, EPA announced a new, even more complex IRIS system. The General Accounting Office estimates it will take a minimum of six years for new entries to be approved. This OMB-managed system is also secret from Congress and the public, leading to questions about why science needs to be debated secretly. It's hard to see how this new system is designed to do anything but further slow the IRIS process and undermine confidence that IRIS entries are based solely on science.
A working IRIS system could have helped the Federal Emergency Management Agency get a reliable health risk rating for formaldehyde. The current listing is almost 20 years old, and the effort to update it has been stuck in limbo since 2004. When FEMA was deciding what level of formaldehyde in trailers was safe, they could not turn to IRIS for guidance. The resulting uncertainty left families in FEMA-provided housing exposed to elevated levels of formaldehyde for at least a year longer than necessary. The consequences to the health of those families are incalculable.
The House Science and Technology Committee, which I chair, has been examining the suppression or distortion of science at federal agencies such as EPA for more than a year. Time and again, my committee has found that public health is put at risk through overzealous managers trying to cover up problems rather than address them head on.
IRIS entries are not regulations. They are simply statements about what science tells us regarding the risks to workers and families from exposure to chemicals. Once you know how dangerous something is, then you can begin to think about how to deal with it. Without that basic information, our communities remain in jeopardy from preventable disease and death. We cannot take steps to protect the health of our children if we cannot get politics out of the science of public health.
