EPA Science Panel in Conflict with EPA Administrator

"Irate scientists say the administrator ignored or misconstrued their recommendations in proposed new rules on soot and dust pollution." (By Janet Wilson, Los Angees Times, February 4, 2006.)

"In an unprecedented action, the Environmental Protection Agency's own scientific panel on Friday challenged the agency's proposed public health standards governing soot and dust.

"The Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, mandated by Congress to review such proposals, asserted Friday that the standards put forward by EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson ignored most of the committee's earlier recommendations and could lead to additional heart attacks, lung cancer and respiratory ailments.....

"Some panel members called the administrator's actions 'egregious' and said his proposals "twisted" or "misrepresented" their recommendations.

"'We are obligated to recommend something beneficial to public health,' said the panel's longest-serving member, Morton Lippmann, a professor of environmental medicine at New York University School of Medicine.

"After a teleconference Friday lasting nearly four hours, the committee members decided to write a letter to Johnson laying out the scientific evidence for their conclusions and urging him to reconsider his proposals......

"It was the first time since the committee was established under the Clean Air Act nearly 30 years ago that the committee had asked the EPA to change course, according to EPA staffers and committee members."

EPA officials are taking public comment on the proposed rules through April and plan to meet a court deadline to adopt final standards by September.

My sympathies are strongly with the scientific panel. Of course, I am suspicious of the willingness of this Administration to impose adequate environmental regulation on industry to begin with. If you want to support the scientific advisory panel, consider registering a comment on the proposed regulation.

Here is the facet of the EPA website on National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Particulate Matter. It has a wealth of background documents on this regulatory action that can be downloaded.

You can submit a comment on the proposed regulation. Click here for the Federal Register's formal documentation of the proposed rule.

Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–OAR–2001–0017 by one of the following methods:

• http://www.regulations.gov: Follow the on-line instructions for submitting comments.
• E-mail: a-and-r-Docket@epa.gov.
• Fax: 202–566–1749.
• Mail: Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–OAR–2001–0017, Environmental Protection Agency, Mailcode: 6102T, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20460. Please include a total of two copies.
• Hand Delivery: Environmental Protection Agency, EPA West Building, Room B102, 1301 Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, DC. Such deliveries are only accepted during the Docket’s normal hours of operation, and special arrangements should be made for
deliveries of boxed information.