Yesterday, Congress held a hearing titled, “Holding the Biden-Harris EPA Accountable for Radical Rush-to-Green Spending.” We can all guess the point of this hearing from that title alone.
For an outlet writing about science, it is clear from today's post that you did not to the scientists who are the subject of the recent IG reports on retaliation for their protests of watering down risk assessments for new chemicals prior to their commercial release. If you had talked to the three scientists whose complaints were confirmed by the IG (all clients of my organization, PEER), they would have told you:
1. The miscreant managers identified by the IG were all retained, and some were elevated in the Biden term. AA Freedhoff repeatedly defended these managers, and EPA disagreed with the findings in the reports.
2. These IG reports took three years to complete and do not address more recent complaints of the same misconduct under Freedhoff which are still under investigation.
These improperly assessed, highly hazardous chemicals are still on the market and EPA has no plans to reexamine their risk assessments.
Your defense of EPA's Scientific Integrity Program, run by your former UCS colleague Francesca Grifo, is notable because it fails to ask what the SIP was doing during (and after) the Trump years. The answer is nothing. EP's SIP conducted not a single investigation during this period. Incredibly, EPA still has no procedures for investigation allegations of scientific misconduct or for punishing those who commit scientific misconduct: https://peer.org/epa-fears-empowering-own-scientists/
Given that EPA's SIP is, at best, a beacon of false hope, it was good that the IG was willing to take on these complex investigations. In doing so, the IG has hired scientists to undertake these reviews, with several more in the pipeline.
Jeff Ruch
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)
For an outlet writing about science, it is clear from today's post that you did not to the scientists who are the subject of the recent IG reports on retaliation for their protests of watering down risk assessments for new chemicals prior to their commercial release. If you had talked to the three scientists whose complaints were confirmed by the IG (all clients of my organization, PEER), they would have told you:
1. The miscreant managers identified by the IG were all retained, and some were elevated in the Biden term. AA Freedhoff repeatedly defended these managers, and EPA disagreed with the findings in the reports.
2. These IG reports took three years to complete and do not address more recent complaints of the same misconduct under Freedhoff which are still under investigation.
Moreover, EPA has declined to address most of the improperly altered risk assessments. Here is a particularly egregious example: https://peer.org/fumigant-decision-shows-epa-science-at-its-worst/
These improperly assessed, highly hazardous chemicals are still on the market and EPA has no plans to reexamine their risk assessments.
Your defense of EPA's Scientific Integrity Program, run by your former UCS colleague Francesca Grifo, is notable because it fails to ask what the SIP was doing during (and after) the Trump years. The answer is nothing. EP's SIP conducted not a single investigation during this period. Incredibly, EPA still has no procedures for investigation allegations of scientific misconduct or for punishing those who commit scientific misconduct: https://peer.org/epa-fears-empowering-own-scientists/
Given that EPA's SIP is, at best, a beacon of false hope, it was good that the IG was willing to take on these complex investigations. In doing so, the IG has hired scientists to undertake these reviews, with several more in the pipeline.
Jeff Ruch
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)