Last month, EPA published for public comment a draft “framework” for human health risk assessment.  It is the culmination of years of work done by EPA staff who are part of the Risk Assessment Forum, a select team of experts from various offices throughout the agency whose efforts were overseen by the Office of the Science Advisor.  Billed as a response to the National Research Council’s Science and Decisions:  Advancing Risk Assessment (a.k.a. the “Silver Book”), the Framework really only addresses one of NRC’s recommendations.  And it proposes policy changes that threaten scientific integrity.

The Silver Book’s Chapter 8 looks innocuous at first glance, suggesting that improvements in EPA’s risk assessment process should include reforms that “make risk assessments more useful for informing risk-management decisions.”  But the simple utilitarian façade masks a proposal that would induce a revolutionary shift in the …

The White House today announced the departure of Cass Sunstein, Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. CPR President Rena Steinzor issued the following statement:  

Cass Sunstein brought impressive credentials and a personal relationship with the President to his job as Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. But in the final analysis, Sunstein has continued the Bush Administration’s tradition of using the office to block needed health and safety protections disliked by big business and political contributors. Worse, the narrative that Sunstein helped craft about the impact of regulations on American life — that regulatory safeguards are fundamentally suspect — was discordant with the rest of the President's agenda and the arguments he makes for his reelection.

Sunstein’s departure is an opportunity for the Administration to reset its regulatory policy and embrace public health and safety protections that have …

Talk about trying to fix the wrong problem: Senators Mark Warner, Rob Portman, and Susan Collins have introduced a bill today that seeks to move the rulemaking process further away from agency experts and transparency and more toward hidden corners of the White House, where well-heeled industries can buy access and push political operatives to block rules.

The bill at hand is the Independent Agency Regulatory Analysis Act. In a press release and accompanying fact sheet today, the senatorial trio – one conservative Democrat, one potential Republican VP nominee, and a once-moderate Republican who has changed her stripes – boast how the bill seeks to bring the “independent agencies” under the purview of the White House.  Those agencies include the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, both of which have great potential to exasperate the big bankers and security brokers who bankroll elections …