THE SET-UP: The GOP accuses the EPA of “regulatory overreach.” The reality seems quite to the contrary, as evidenced by the reporting below and by the long, winding tale of “dimethyl tetrachloroterephthalate.” It’s a “widely-used” herbicide linked to “low birth weight, impaired brain development, decreased bone deposition and Intelligence Quotient, and impaired motor skills.” That sordid story of delay and inaction is told by Dave Dickey of Investigative Midwest and you’ll find filed under “SEE ALSO.” - jp
TITLE: EPA Scientists Said They Were Pressured to Downplay Harms From Chemicals. A Watchdog Found They Were Retaliated Against.
https://www.propublica.org/article/epa-scientists-faced-retaliation-after-finding-harm-from-chemicals
EXCERPTS: More than three years ago, a small group of government scientists came forward with disturbing allegations.
During President Donald Trump’s administration, they said, their managers at the Environmental Protection Agency began pressuring them to make new chemicals they were vetting seem safer than they really were. They were encouraged to delete evidence of chemicals’ harms, including cancer, miscarriage and neurological problems, from their reports — and in some cases, they said, their managers deleted the information themselves.
After the scientists pushed back, they received negative performance reviews and three of them were removed from their positions in the EPA’s division of new chemicals and reassigned to jobs elsewhere in the agency.
On Wednesday, the EPA inspector general announced that it had found that some of the treatment experienced by three of those scientists — Martin Phillips, Sarah Gallagher and William Irwin — amounted to retaliation.
Three reports issued by the inspector general confirmed that the scientists’ negative performance reviews as well as a reassignment and the denial of an award that can be used for cash or time off were retaliatory. They also detailed personal attacks by supervisors, who called them “stupid,” “piranhas” and “pot-stirrers.”
The reports called on the EPA to take “appropriate corrective action” in response to the findings. In one case, the inspector general noted that supervisors who violate the Whistleblower Protection Act should be suspended for at least three days.
The reports focus only on the retaliation claims. The inspector general is expected to issue reports in the future about the whistleblowers’ scientific allegations.
In an email sent to the staff of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention after the reports were released, EPA Assistant Administrator Michal Freedhoff wrote that the office plans to hold a “refresher training on both scientific integrity and the Whistleblower Protection Act” for all managers in the office. Freedhoff also wrote that the office is “reviewing the reports to determine whether additional action may be necessary.”
In a statement to ProPublica, the EPA tied the problems laid out in the report to Trump. “The events covered by these reports began during the previous administration when the political leadership placed intense pressure on both career managers and scientists in EPA’s new chemicals program to more quickly review and approve new chemicals,” the agency wrote, going on to add that the “work environment has been transformed under Administrator Michael Regan’s leadership.”
Trump campaign spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A second Trump presidency could see more far-reaching interference with the agency’s scientific work. Project 2025, the radical conservative policy plan to overhaul the government, would make it much easier to fire scientists who raised concerns about industry influence.
“I’m worried about the future because there are groups out there pushing for changes to the civil service that would make it so I could be fired and replaced with a non-scientist,” said Phillips, a chemist. Publicly available versions of the inspector general’s reports redacted the names of all EPA employees, including the scientists, but Phillips, Gallagher and Irwin confirmed that the investigations focused on their complaints.
Phillips said the experience of having his work changed, facing hostility from his supervisors and agonizing about whether and how to alert authorities was traumatic. He began pushing back against the pressure from his bosses in 2019, trying to explain why his calculations were correct and refusing their requests to change his findings, he said.
In one case, someone had deleted a report he had written that noted that a chemical caused miscarriages and birth defects in rats and replaced it with another report that omitted this critical information. After Phillips asked that the original report be restored, he was removed from his position within the EPA’s division of new chemicals and assigned a job elsewhere in the agency.
He and the other scientists said they felt vindicated by the inspector general’s findings.
TITLE: Watchdog slams EPA for retaliation on chemical reviews
https://www.eenews.net/articles/watchdog-slams-epa-for-retaliation-on-chemical-reviews/
EXCERPTS: An EPA spokesperson said the whistleblower’s complaints are a bygone of the Trump administration, and the agency under President Joe Biden “has restored scientific integrity as the cornerstone of its work to protect public health and the environment, including reinstating key whistleblower protections that empower employees to share their own, differing scientific opinions.”
But Inspector General Sean O’Donnell isn’t convinced.
“The EPA administrator has emphasized the Agency’s commitment to scientific integrity and science-based decision-making,” O’Donnell said in a statement. “These reports, and many others we have issued over the last five years, demonstrate that more work is needed to meet that commitment.”
Kyla Bennett, science policy director for the group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility representing the five whistleblowers, said scientific integrity “has not gotten better” and there are still “serious problems.”
It’s not the first time the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics has been under fire. Tasked with implementing the Toxic Substances Control Act, the office has struggled to meet expectations under the 2016 statutory update that gave the agency more authority to regulate dangerous chemicals.
The “new” TSCA also requires EPA to review every new chemical submitted within 90 days before it enters the market, something that the agency only completed for about 20 percent of new chemicals before 2016.
Human health assessors have described the statutory deadline as “somewhat impossible” and “ridiculous,” according to the inspector general reports, but that hasn’t stopped criticism.
Chemical industry groups complain that the chemical review backlog has hindered innovation and slowed progress on essential technologies, like electric vehicles or semiconductors, and have applied immense pressure on burnt-out employees struggling to meet the deadline.
“A political appointee complained about specific human health assessors as being ‘slow’ and asked their management to be more involved in their work,” the inspector general reports say. “Agency leadership also characterized these assessors as too ‘conservative’ in their approach.”
Bennett, a former EPA employee herself, said a cautious approach from the 36 human health assessors within OPPT is the only thing that can block dangerous chemicals.
“Shouldn’t they be conservative?” Bennett said. “Why would you not want to be conservative when you’re talking about human health? So we need to change the culture there.”
Bennett said she was “incredibly grateful” the inspector general found evidence of retaliation, but it doesn’t solve the problem.
“I know from talking to people currently at EPA that both the underlying scientific problems and the retaliation is continuing,” Bennett said. “So what do we do? Where do we go? That’s the problem.”
TITLE: EPA delays PFAS reporting rule to 2025
https://www.manufacturingdive.com/news/epa-delay-pfas-reporting-rule-date-forever-chemicals/727028/
EXCERPTS: Manufacturers now have more time before they must begin reporting the presence of PFAS in their supply chains to the Environmental Protection Agency — the agency delayed implementation of the rule for most manufacturers from Nov. 12, 2024, to July 11, 2025.
Companies were due to submit such information to the EPA by May 8, 2025, but will now have from July 11, 2025, until Jan. 22, 2026, according to the final rule, which falls under the Toxic Substances Control Act. For qualifying small manufacturers, their deadline was moved from July 11, 2025, to July 11, 2026.
The agency noted the change was due to a $5 million budget reduction and resource constraints, which hamper efforts related to meeting statutory deadlines.
The budget reduction cut into IT funds allocated for the Toxic Substances Control Act, which included the development of software needed for data collection related to PFAS reporting, the agency said. As a result, the software that will be used to collect PFAS data
The National Association of Manufacturers and the American Chemistry Council lauded the EPA’s decision to delay the regulation. Still, the trade associations pushed back on the agency’s adoption of the reporting rule as hindering the industry.
“More broadly, [the] announcement reflects the massive administrative burden this proposal would impose on both the business community and regulators, while failing to provide insights for effective and prioritized public health efforts,” Chris Phalen, VP of domestic policy at NAM, said in a statement. “We urge the agency to reverse course entirely, unless and until it has the capacity to effectively enforce the standard.”
The ACC voiced its concern about the EPA’s collection of corporate information that could impede on trade secrets.
“ACC and its members are committed to enhancing the quantity and quality of information on PFAS, but we remain concerned with the overly broad approach and the unprecedented breadth of information being requested by this rule. PFAS are a diverse group of chemistries integral to thousands of products we use daily,” the chemical trade group said in a statement.
SEE ALSO:
EPA slow to suspend toxic herbicide tied to lifelong health issues
https://investigatemidwest.org/2024/09/10/epa-dcpa-herbicide-health-risks/
The SCOTUS Shadow Docket is (Almost) All EPA Cases. That’s Concerning.
https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/the-scotus-shadow-docket-is-almost-all-epa-cases-thats-concerning/
Project 2025 would ‘essentially eviscerate EPA,’ former staff warn
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/19/24248267/epa-air-pollution-report-biden-trump-project-2025
A coal plant bulldozed an Ohio town displacing residents. Now its owners include a big Trump donor
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/11/gavin-coal-plant-cheshire-ohio