Through the Looking Glass: Chemical Industry to Star in the Role of Weeping Walrus at House Hearing on EPA's Assessment of Toxic Chemicals
Editor's Note: This morning, CPR President Rena Steinzor will testify at a House hearing regarding EPA's Integrated Risk Information System chemical database (full testimony). This post by NRDC Senior Attorney Daniel Rosenberg, cross-posted from Switchboard, explains the importance of IRIS and how the program is under attack.
Thursday morning, the House Science Committee’s Investigation and Oversight Committee will hold a hearing on EPA’s premier program for assessing the dangers of chemicals. It is called the IRIS program, (which stands for Integrated Risk Information System). The IRIS program looks at the science available on the potential dangers of a chemical and determines what hazard that chemical may pose – such as causing cancer, birth defects, diseases, etc., and what level of exposure, if any, is likely to be without an appreciable risk of harm. The IRIS program doesn’t issue regulations; it is focused on assessment of chemical hazards. But other parts of EPA, such as the air program and the water program, rely upon the IRIS assessments in setting their health standards to protect people from toxic chemicals. Other states and countries also rely upon the IRIS assessments.
Because of the importance of IRIS assessments for determining …
The nation’s capital is all but intolerable these days, even for those of us who have lived here for decades and are used to excessive histrionics and gross summer weather. A pall of bad, hot, wet air has settled over the place, and serves as a backdrop to the slow-motion car wreck that is the debt ceiling negotiations—in every sense a crisis of political creation. In the midst of this misery, a small spark of comic relief was provided yesterday by the spectacle of hundreds of top-level business executives, led by the Business Roundtable and the Chamber of Commerce, pleading with their Tea Party allies not to run the economy into a ditch by provoking a default on the country’s financial obligations to institutions and governments across the globe. Having hitched its political wagon to a team of wild horses, big business has gone …
Last week, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) of the Office of Management and Budget released the semiannual regulatory agenda. I pointed out that the agenda, which contains the regulatory agencies’ planned actions, was quite late. Although the plans share problems from past years, like simply pushing back the target dates for regulatory actions, there are some pleasant surprises. For example, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is moving forward with some proactive regulatory responses to the Toyota recalls of 2009, and the EPA plans to propose or finalize updates to National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAPs) for 30 sources. Here’s an overview of some highlights (not covering everything) from the regulatory plans. More information about each individual rulemaking can be found by following the links.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
- OSHA has eight occupational standards working through the arduous pre-rule …
On Monday, the White House announced that President Obama had signed a new executive order on federal regulation to supplement January’s executive order to executive branch regulatory agencies. The new executive order is aimed at the “independent agencies,” so named because the heads of those agencies do not serve at the pleasure of the president. By statute, they serve for a term of years and can be removed from office only “for cause,” which usually means misbehavior unrelated to the exercise of the agency’s policymaking functions.
The new executive order urges the independent agencies to use cost-benefit analysis in promulgating new regulations, to adopt “flexible” approaches to regulation, and to engage in retrospective analyses of existing regulations with an eye toward modifying or withdrawing regulations that are “outmoded, ineffective, insufficient, or excessively burdensome.”
As Professor Rena Steinzor argued in this blog in January, the original …
Cross-posted from Environmental Law Prof Blog.
Do you realize that the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency last week represents the end of the famed Acid Rain Program? It's a good thing because the Acid Rain Program had outlived its usefulness by several years and its allowance market had collapsed.
Legislated into existence by the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, the Acid Rain Program (ARP) was a major experiment with cap-and-trade regulation. It began in 1995, and its first few years were quite a success. With the ability to bank allowances for future years when they might be quite valuable, the power plants included in the program reduced their pollution by more than they had to. In the first five years of the program, EPA’s annual caps allowed them to emit a total of 38 million tons of sulfur dioxide …
Last month, the American Chemistry Council sent a letter to Jacob Lew, Director of the Office of Managmenet and Budget, calling on OMB to “take greater responsibility in the coordination and review of chemical safety assessments” and to “require EPA to submit all ongoing EPA IRIS assessments to the NAS for independent review.” The letter was the latest industry attack on the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), the EPA’s primary toxicological database. IRIS assessments of chemicals are used in regulatory decisions to protect the public, safety decisions by industry, and as evidence offered in litigation.
Today CPR President Rena Steinzor and Member Scholar Wendy Wagner wrote to Lew to rebut the ACC’s arguments, and to urge OMB not to take an inappropriate role in scientific assessments:
ACC’s request that OMB play a larger role in the scientific work of conducting IRIS assessments is a …
The Administration has been busy promoting President Obama’s new approach to regulatory review, which required federal regulatory agencies to produce plans for how they would review existing regulations and look for regulations to cut. But while the mad dash to find regulations the administration can trot out as misguided or outdated continued, the agencies were delayed in releasing plans about what they want to do proactively to protect workers, children, and the environment.
As our friend Celeste Monforton over at The Pump Handle pointed out a couple of weeks ago, advocates have been waiting on these plans for quite some time. The Regulatory Flexibility Act requires agencies to submit the agendas each April and October. Monforton said OMB told her to expect the plans in early July. And so the new agenda was published today.
The agencies’ regulatory plans give advocates, business, and everyone else a …
This post was written by CPR Member Scholar Sandra Zellmer and John H. Davidson, an emeritus professor of law at the University of South Dakota. It appeared first in the Omaha World-Herald.
As the Missouri River nears the 500-year flood mark, we sympathize with those whose homes and businesses are flooded. And we recognize that it’s natural for the afflicted to cast blame on a scapegoat — a practice as old as recorded history. But those who blame the flooding on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ efforts to conserve native wildlife species are deeply misinformed.
First, there is no legal basis for pointing fingers in this direction. The Flood Control Act of 1944 — the statute that authorized the big mainstem dams in North and South Dakota — prioritizes flood control and navigation. The Act also authorizes operations that benefit wildlife and, when it comes to listed …
Let’s go on a road trip. Whether it’s the beach or the mountains, we all know what going on a road trip means: great memories, possible adventure, time to mosey around the country we love. The Chamber of Commerce is also planning a road trip this summer, headed by former Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) and Andrew Card, George W. Bush’s former chief of staff. But fun and relaxation are not on the itinerary. Regulations that could protect our children are.
At ThinkProgress, CPR Member Scholar Sid Shapiro explained why the anti-regulation roadshow is ridiculous because of all the myths and misinformation it’s designed to promote. He’s right, of course, but, as a mother, I want to add another perspective. I’m tired of the well-worn refrain that “excessive” regulations “suck the vitality” out of the economy. Not only is the claim false …
Upon reading the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs’ (OIRA) latest annual Report to Congress on the Benefits and Costs of Federal Regulations, one can be forgiven for wondering momentarily whether the 2008 election was just a dream and whether we’re still in the midst of a Republican administration. OIRA is telling us that the primary goal of government regulation—particularly environmental, health, and safety regulation—is not to protect the environment or public health, but to “promote the goals of economic growth, innovation, competitiveness, and job creation,” and in so doing “to avoid excessive regulation, to eliminate unnecessary burdens, and to choose appropriate responses.” Is it just me, or does this sound like a line taken directly from the Chamber of Commerce’s script?
Granted, the annual report, released on Friday, is something OIRA is required to do by statute. But it could …
