August, 08 2011, 10:23am EDT
EPA Posts Pathetically Weak Scientific Integrity Proposal
No Rules to Ban Political Manipulation or Secure Transparency or Right to Publish
WASHINGTON
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a scientific integrity policy that affirms the status quo while codifying absolute agency control over scientific information presented to the media, Congress and peers, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The plan was developed under President Obama's 2009 directive that agencies adopt rules prohibiting political interference with science, promoting transparency and extending whistleblower protection to scientists. Yet, the EPA proposal appears to accomplish none of these objectives.
"EPA has put forward by far the weakest scientific integrity rules of any agency. In many ways, it is a big step backward," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "Under EPA's plan to protect scientific integrity, only its scientists can be punished for misconduct as there are no firm rules against managers manipulating or masking technical work and no mechanism to enforce rules if they existed."
Posted last Friday afternoon, the 12-page EPA proposal consists largely of lofty rhetoric lauding current practices. Its sole pronouncement on a key issue says the agency "expects EPA scientists and engineers, regardless of grade level, position or duties to: Ensure that their work is of the highest integrity, free from political influence." This implies that it is up to scientists to fight off management interference but the draft policy provides them no tools for doing so.
By contrast, the proposal clearly authorizes managers and public affairs officials to screen information:
- Any contact with the media must adhere to "EPA's and their Program Office's or Region's clearance procedures associated with ensuring accuracy and disseminating scientific information and scientific assessments" yet these clearance procedures are not laid out. Plus, "public affairs staff' is told to "attend interviews to ensure that the Agency is being fully responsive to media questions and to ensure...consistency..."
- Scientists' ability to publish or present papers is "subject to any management approval that may be required..." and
- Even private statements by EPA staff with an appropriate disclaimer could be sanctioned for failure to "represent the results of their scientific activities...objectively, thoroughly, and ...consistent with their official responsibilities."
"In the name of transparency, EPA has tightened the clamps on information flow as well as over what its specialists can say or write," added Ruch, noting that in 2009 EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson refused to address the absence of guidance for contact with media or Congress or the ability to publish and lecture. "EPA brags that it is 'committed to operating as if in a fishbowl.' Well, someone needs to clean the fishbowl because it is getting pretty murky in there."
On other key topics, the EPA draft is confusing or downright incoherent. For example, it -
- Refers to "adopting appropriate whistleblower protections" but never spells out what they are, what they will protect or who will enforce them;
- Sets up a Scientific Integrity Committee which may receive scientific misconduct complaints but provides no clue as to how it is supposed to handle them. It then tells employees they may also direct complaints "directly to the OIG" (Office of Inspector General), even though the OIG has no power to enforce findings, nor is it clear that it has the expertise to referee technical disputes.
- Lays out a hopelessly vague definition of scientific misconduct which, apart from "fabrication, falsification or plagiarism," does not clearly ban political suppression, manipulation or skewing of technical information - the very practices which prompted the Obama directive.
The public comment period for this EPA draft is only one month, ending on September 6th.
###
Read the draft EPA Science Integrity Policy
Compare the Interior Department Scientific Integrity rules
Look at the slow, uneven Obama scientific integrity initiative
View the opaque EPA "fishbowl" policy
See the PEER prescription for EPA scientific integrity reform
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is a national alliance of local state and federal resource professionals. PEER's environmental work is solely directed by the needs of its members. As a consequence, we have the distinct honor of serving resource professionals who daily cast profiles in courage in cubicles across the country.
LATEST NEWS
Israel's Gaza Onslaught Continues as Concerns Rise Over Escalation With Hezbollah
A barrage of Israeli strikes across Gaza killed many dozen Palestinians over the weekend, while a strike attributed to Hezbollah killed 12 children in Israeli-controlled territory.
Jul 28, 2024
Israel's war in Gaza continued in full force on Saturday and Sunday, with at least 66 Palestinians killed in roughly the last 24 hours, as international attention shifted to concern about an all-out war with Lebanon following an attack on Israeli-controlled territory that killed 12 children, with international diplomats pushing for deescalation.
At least 66 people were killed in Israeli strikes across Gaza in a 24-hour period, and another 241 were injured, the enclave's health ministry reported Sunday. Fifteen were also killed in strikes on Khan Younis that apparently weren't included in the 24-hour count, including a four-month-old girl, Al Jazeerareported.
The strikes in Gaza came as the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, a heavily armed militia and political party in Lebanon, intensified. A rocket attack on a soccer field in the town of Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, an Israeli-controlled territory, killed 12 children—the most deadly attack on Israeli-controlled land since October. The victims were Druze Arab; it's not clear from media reports if they were Israeli citizens.
Israel blamed Hezbollah for the attack, and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was "every indication" that the group was behind it, though Hezbollah denied responsibility, which it hasn't done for previous strikes.
"Hezbollah will pay a heavy price, which it has not paid up to now," Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in an overnight statement.
The Israel-Hezbollah conflict, featuring cross-border strikes, has killed more than 500 since October, including more than 100 civilians, but has thus far remained relatively contained, with both sides saying that they are willing to engage in full-scale war but want to avoid it. About 100,000 people in Lebanon and 60,000 in Israel have been already displaced due to the strikes.
Hezbollah is seen as far stronger and better equipped than Hamas, the Palestinian militant and political group which Israel is seeking to eliminate, following the group's massacre of more than 1,100 Israelis on October 7. Both groups are classified by the U.S. State Department as foreign terrorist organizations.
Israel's conflicts with the two groups are related and ending one could help end the other. Hezbollah has said it would stop its attacks if a cease-fire in Gaza is reached.
Experts are calling on U.S. diplomats not just to diffuse Israel-Hezbollah tensions but also to use its leverage, as the main arms supplier and backer of Israel, to bring an end to the assault on Gaza.
"The U.S. administration has not done enough to [reach a ceasefire] in Gaza," Heiko Wimmen, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera on Sunday. "The incident in Majdal Shams is a potent reminder of why it is necessary to bring this unending conflict to an end."
For now, the violence continues on multiple fronts. An Israeli drone strike killed two Palestinians in the West Bank on Saturday and injured 28, according to Al Jazeera.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Would Let Industry Sway PFAS Rules and Endanger Public Health, Experts Warn
"Basically the entire infrastructure of how the EPA considers science and develops rules is very much under attack," a nonprofit director said.
Jul 28, 2024
A second Trump administration would cripple the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ability to protect the public from toxic "forever chemicals," The Guardianreported Sunday, citing experts inside and outside the agency.
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a class of about 16,000 synthetic compounds that break down only very slowly, have been linked to a wide array of serious medical conditions including cancer. The EPA under the Biden administration has instituted limits on PFAS levels in drinking water and other PFAS regulations that industry groups oppose.
Experts warn that allies of Republican nominee Donald Trump aim not just to roll back Biden-era regulations but fundamentally reshape the agency.
"Basically the entire infrastructure of how [the] EPA considers science and develops rules is very much under attack," Erik Olson, legislative director at the Natural Resource Defense Council, told The Guardian.
An unnamed EPA employee told the newspaper that a second Trump administration would seek to disempower agency experts and let political appointees make key regulatory decisions.
"They want a small group of 20 people making the rules, and the rest of the agency can go to hell as far as they care," said the EPA employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Project 2025, a roadmap for Republican governance produced by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, proposes deregulation of PFAS, narrowing the definition of the class of toxic compounds, and elimination of the EPA office that assesses chemicals' toxicity.
Project 2025, to the extent that it's known about, has proven unpopular with the American public, and Trump has tried to distance himself from the plan, but has close links to its authors, at least 140 of whom worked in the former president's administration.
Project 2025's proposals on forever chemicals are aligned with the aims of the American Chemistry Council, the fourth largest lobbying group in the country. During his first term, Trump appointed ACC leaders to key positions in the EPA, and critics of the former president argue that his second administration would be even more unabashedly pro-industry.
"The Trump administration learned some lessons and would be much more surgical and effective at affixation next time," the NRDC's Olson said.
The unnamed EPA employee said a Trump victory might even mean the abolishment of the EPA's entire Office of Research and Development.
ACC members 3M and DuPont developed PFAS in the mid-20th century and used them in a wide range of products, even with knowledge of their toxicity and the way that the accumulate in the human body, according to a series of exposés in recent years, notably by the journalist Sharon Lerner in her work at ProPublica and The Intercept. A recent article of Lerner's in The New Yorker showed that 3M long concealed the dangers of PFAS.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Moms and Kids Protest Fossil Fuel Expansion at Citigroup CEO's Home
Dozens of climate campaigners were arrested for protesting the multinational bank's financing of new fossil fuel development.
Jul 27, 2024
Hundreds of activists, largely mothers and their kids, protested outside Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser's luxury apartment building in New York City on Saturday, calling for the multinational bank she leads to stop funding fossil fuel expansion.
The protest, at which 59 people were arrested, was part of the Summer of Heat, a program of nonviolent direct action led by five climate advocacy groups that has targeted Citigroup because it's a leading funder of the fossil fuel industry.
The activists set up a memorial on the sidewalk outside Fraser's building dedicated to the tens of millions of children who've been displaced because of climate change in recent years.
Marlena Fontes, a director at Climate Defenders who organized the action, explained the impact of climate change on her family in a speech to gathered protesters. She said that when haze from Canadian wildfires covered New York City last year, her son was afraid, and her one-year-old daughter had an asthma attack.
"She was just one of many, many children on this planet who are being affected by the climate crisis," Fontes said.
BREAKING: NYPD arrests grandparents, parents, students, scientists and clergy outside of @Citibank CEO Jane Fraser’s NYC penthouse.
Citi keeps pouring billions into oil, gas and coal projects killing our kids. Jane can’t hide from responsibility. #SummerofHeat pic.twitter.com/0FUBStYvuK
— New York Communities for Change (@nychange) July 27, 2024
The protestors marched from Citigroup's headquarters to the apartment building, located a few blocks away. About 200 or 300 people took part in the protest, and 59 were arrested; the police were on site before they even arrived, Alicé Nascimento, policy director at New York Communities for Change, one of the Summer of Heat organizing groups, told Common Dreams. The other organizing groups are Climate Defenders, Climate Organizing Hub, Stop the Money Pipeline, and the youth-led Planet Over Profit.
BREAKING: Hundreds of parents and climate activists are about to descend onto the luxury apartment complex of Jane Fraser, the high powered CEO of @Citibank, the world’s biggest funder of fossil fuel expansion.
We’re taking the crisis to her doorstep. #SummerofHeat pic.twitter.com/50zGKVBwjT
— New York Communities for Change (@nychange) July 27, 2024
Summer of Heat, which began actions in early June, has turned out to be aptly named, as the summer has been full of deadly heatwaves in the U.S. and across the northern hemisphere. Saturday's action came following a week of extreme global temperatures: Monday was the hottest day in recorded history, breaking a record set just the day before. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday called for coordinated global action to deal with extreme heat, including by transitioning away from fossil fuels.
Corporations like Citigroup make that transition far more difficult, campaigners say. Citigroup was responsible for providing more financing to companies developing new fossil fuel projects than any other bank in the world for the period from 2015 to 2023, according to a Banking on Climate Chaosreport published in May. In terms of overall financing to fossil fuel companies, Citigroup ranked second in the world, behind only JPMorgan Chase, at nearly $400 billion during that period.
Saturday's action was the first of the summer targeted at Fraser's home, though a smaller group of campaigners did protest there in February. Fraser has in the past expressed a willingness to take a climate into account in Citigroup's dealings.
Rachel Rivera, a member of New York Communities for Change, spoke to the gathered protesters about the struggles that her family has faced in the past and in the recent extreme heat. She was displaced during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and lost loved ones in Puerto Rico to Hurricane Maria in 2017. A mother of six, she said that last week her 10-year-old daughter had to be hospitalized and intubated due to respiratory seizures brought on by the extreme heat.
"Jane Fraser should walk a mile in my shoes," she said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular