Sometimes a guy just can't win ...
Ether St. Vying
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http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2003/2003-01-23-10.asp
[]
Americans may be unfamiliar with the role of scientific advisory
committees, but the impact
of the advice they give is extensive. Rules
and regulations that govern
clean air, clean water, food safety and
pesticide use, among others,
have been devised with scientific advice
from such committees.
The growing concern from
American scientists comes from a slew of
examples. Members of the
Center for Disease Control's (CDC) Advisory
Committee on Childhood Lead
Poisoning Prevention were replaced last
year with individuals with
close ties to the lead industry, including Dr.
William Banner, who has
provided written testimony on behalf of lead
industry defendants in a
lawsuit in Rhode Island.
Banner is on record as
believing that lead is only harmful in levels that
are seven to 10 times higher
than the current CDC blood lead levels. The
CDC estimates some 890,000
U.S. children ages one to five have elevated
levels of lead in their
blood.
Fifteen of the 18 members of
the Advisory Committee to the Director of
the National Health Center
for Environmental Health were replaced last
year. This committee
assesses the health impact of exposure to
environmental chemicals.
Among the new members is the former
president of the Chemical
Industry Institute for Toxicology.
Tommy Thompson, Secretary of the Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS), dissolved a
committee charged with analyzing the federal
system for protecting human research subjects. A
committee tasked with giving the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration advice on oversight of the genetics
testing industry was similarly disbanded.
A respected scientist nominated to serve on an HHS
peer review study section,
which is charged with reviewing research
grant proposals submitted to
the National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health, was
rejected for her support of an ergonomics rule
overturned by the Bush
administration last year.
A consultant to the Army
Science Board was disapproved for full
membership on the committee
because, he was told, he contributed to
Senator John McCain's
campaign, an allegation that was false.
A new member of the Food and
Drug Administration's Reproductive
Health Drugs Advisory
Committee, Dr. David Hager, helped the Christian
Medical Association lobby
for a safety review of a drug the committee
approved two years ago. The
announcement that Hager, who has very
few research credits, had
been put on the committee was released on
Christmas Eve.
The trouble with this
politicization of the process by which scientists
advise the government,
Michaels explained, is that they will directly
impact the government's
willingness to act.
"I don't think there is
really any danger of a committee coming out and
making a statement so far
out of the mainstream that it takes us in a
different direction," he
explained. "What these committees will do, and I
think this is what the
administration wants, is to essentially throw their
hands up and say there is
too much uncertainty. That sort of paralysis is
dangerous."
[]
Goldman, who served as the assistant administrator for the Office of
Prevention, Pesticide and
Toxic Substances within the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) from
1993 to 1998, has firsthand experience with
the Bush administration's
policy on scientific advisory committees.
Goldman and two other
experts on the effects of pesticides on children
were invited to speak at an
EPA funded conference that was scheduled
for September 2002.
In July 2002,
representatives from the pesticides industry wrote to the
EPA to protest the
conference and specifically the participation of
Goldman and the other two
scientists at the event. The EPA then
rescheduled the conference
for June 2003 and has not re invited any of
the three.
The overarching concern,
Goldman said, is the apparent influence of the
pesticide industry on the
EPA.
[]
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http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2003/2003-01-22-10.asp
[]
Environmental policies can work better and be more
cost effective, according
PERC, when they rely on
market based incentives,
private initiatives and
voluntary action. But the
Bush administration has
failed to apply these free
market principles to its
environmental policy, a new
report from PERC finds,
and has thereby ignored the
rights of property owners
and the benefits of
decentralizing many
environmental protections
and regulations.
"President [George W.]
Bush's administration is moving away from the
principles of free market
environmentalism, when we thought he would
be moving toward it," said
Bruce Yandle, PERC senior associate and
director of the project. "We
are disappointed."
[]
The report criticized the Bush administration for its
enactment of stricter arsenic standards for drinking
water, its signing of a United Nations treaty banning
persistent organic pollutants such as DDT, and its
support of continued
subsidies for fishing and farming interests.
[]
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http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2003/2003-01-17-06.asp
Bush Record on Environment Called Dismal
WASHINGTON, DC, January 17,
2003 (ENS) - The Bush administration
undermined America's
landmark environmental laws on almost a daily
basis in 2002, two new
reports suggest. The reports document more than
100 anti-environmental
actions by the administration last year, and
point to ongoing efforts to
undermine existing protections and delay
proposed new rules that
could help the environment.
For the second year in a
row, federal agencies announced dozens of
regulatory changes that will
weaken safeguards for the nation's air,
water, wetlands, forests,
wildlands, wildlife and public health, finds a
new report from the Natural
Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The
report highlights the fact
that the administration intensified its assault
on environmental protections
after the November mid-term
congressional elections, and
reveals how the White House Office of
Management and Budget (OMB)
played a central role in coordinating the
onslaught.
President George W. Bush
(Photo courtesy the White House)
These conclusions are echoed
by the budget
watchdog group OMB Watch,
which reports that
the Bush administration has
advanced very few
health, safety and
environmental protections over
the last two years - much
fewer than the two
previous administrations -
and is quietly scuttling
work on a host of protective
standards in the
regulatory pipeline.
"Last year, the White House
escalated its efforts to
trample our bedrock
environmental laws," said
Gregory Wetstone, NRDC's
director of advocacy. "And it's going to get
worse. America's
environmental protections have been challenged
before, but never have they
faced a threat as far-reaching, insidious and
destructive as the one posed
by the Bush administration and the new
Congress."
[]
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Aplogies if the formatting slopped up. I wasn't about to spend hours
making it look nice.
Ether
Kent Paul Dolan
> Aplogies if the formatting slopped up. I wasn't about to spend hours
> making it look nice.
> Ether
You need to get used to decent tools. It took me, by the clock, two
minutes to turn that mess into this with vim().
xanthian.
Kent Paul Dolan
> Aplogies if the formatting slopped up. I wasn't about to spend hours
> making it look nice.
> Ether
You need to get used to decent tools. It took me, by the clock, two
minutes to turn that mess into this with vim().
xanthian.
Recent nail clippings of maddening interest ...