After years of study and analysis on the public health implications of regulating perchlorate in drinking water, EPA has come to the conclusion that … it needs to do more study and analysis.

In fact, that is the conclusion of two different EPA offices. Within a two-week span, EPA’s Office of Water and its Office of the Inspector General each issued a report suggesting that the agency should refrain from regulating the chemical until more research clarifies various uncertainties.

On December 30, EPA’s Inspector General released a report that faulted both EPA and the National Academy of Sciences for failing to use cumulative risk assessment techniques to derive the reference dose for perchlorate. The Office of the Inspector General hired a contractor to review EPA’s and NAS’s work, and provided this summary:

Based on our scientific analysis documented in our report, perchlorate is only …

Last week, the New York Times ran two stories that present a fascinating dichotomy in people’s response to rising home-heating costs.

On Friday, Elisabeth Rosenthal reported from the central German town of Darmstadt about “passive houses” that employ high-tech designs to provide warm air and hot water using incredibly small amounts of energy – as little as might be used to power a hair dryer.

Rosenthal explains the design briefly:

Using ultrathick insulation and complex doors and windows, the architect engineers a home encased in an airtight shell, so that barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps in. That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the heat from appliances and even from occupants’ bodies.

The next day, Rosenthal’s colleagues, Tom Zeller, Jr. and Stefan Milkowski, reported on an entirely different trend that is developing here …

Last week, the Philadelphia Inquirer published an outstanding series on Stephen Johnson’s (or, George Bush’s) EPA. Among many other insightful points, John Shiffman and John Sullivan note that for much of the last eight years EPA has shut environmentalists out of the regulatory process, prompting many national environmental organizations to rethink their advocacy strategies. Some have spent more time working directly with major corporations to accomplish pro-environment goals, instead of trying to leverage EPA’s regulatory powers.

A coalition of environmental advocates, including the Rainforest Action Network and NRDC, recently scored a victory by convincing Bank of America to rethink its investments in companies that rely predominantly on mountaintop removal mining to extract coal. For details and quotes from stakeholders, check out Ken Ward’s Charleston Gazette story here. This development provides an interesting study in contrasts.

On the one hand, we have environmental organizations …

Sometime this month, EPA is expected to reach a final determination on regulating perchlorate in Americans’ drinking water. Every indication is that the agency will conclude, despite ample advice to the contrary, that there’s no need for a national standard for the chemical – a component of rocket fuel and munitions. That, even though, by EPA’s own account, millions of Americans are exposed to perchlorate at concentrations that could have a negative impact on our health.

(For some background on why perchlorate isn’t something you want in your water, and particularly in your kids’ drinking water, check out Shana Jones’s post on this blog from October 24.)

Deciding whether a national drinking water regulation “presents a meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction” is a decision that, by law, depends solely on the judgment of the EPA Administrator. In this instance, Administrator Stephen Johnson’s …

Dan Rosenberg of NRDC has an excellent new post up on Switchboard that lays out some ideas for reforming U.S. chemical policies in the wake of the Bush Administration. The ideas include improving the risk assessment process EPA uses to develop its IRIS database, strengthening chemical security measures, re-invigorating right-to-know policies under the Toxic Release Inventory, stepping up research into risks posed by BPA and nanotech, and reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to follow the European Union’s REACH program.

Each reform is important, but I want to comment on the last one. Amending TSCA so that U.S. chemical policy aligns with the Europeans’ precautionary approach is a great way to start closing the data gap on toxic chemicals. Every year, hundreds of new chemicals enter the market, and REACH-style testing requirements would be a good way to ensure that EPA staff have …

Every time energy prices spike, oil companies (and their allies in Washington) start talking up oil shale. It happened just before World War I, it happened after the 1973 oil embargo, and it’s happening again now. Oil shale, the hucksters tell us, is the answer to America’s energy problems. Huge deposits of the stuff lie just below the surface of empty federal lands. It has the potential to provide us hundreds of billions of barrels of homegrown oil. It’s readily available, it’s domestic, and it’s ready for American workers to extract.

If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it is.

In the reality-based world, the economics only work if oil is selling near $100 per barrel and, even then, extracting the oil shale and converting it to a usable product (one that can heat our homes or power …

Last Friday, the American University Washington College of Law and the Robert L. Habush Endowment of the American Association for Justice hosted a conference on emerging ideas in consumer product safety. CPR Member Scholar Sid Shapiro opened the day with a presentation of a new paper he’s written with Professors Ruth Ruttenberg (National Labor College) and Paul Leigh (UC-Davis).

Their paper is an empirical study of the “extended costs” economists typically overlook when tallying up the costs of personal injuries caused by dangerous products. Traditionally, economists use a “cost-of-illness” or “cost-of-injury” (COI) approach that takes into account direct costs (e.g., hospital bills, medical tests, rehabilitation) and indirect costs (e.g., lost earnings, lost value of home production, lost fringe benefits). Shapiro, Ruttenberg, and Leigh refine the traditional methodology by also accounting for the “extended” costs of injuries – things ranging from the cost of assisted living …

In CPR’s recent white paper, Saving Science from Politics, Rena Steinzor, Wendy Wagner and I proposed reforming the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to strengthen the Act’s “adverse effects” reporting requirements.  Under TSCA, registration of a chemical with EPA triggers a continuing obligation on regulated firms to submit to EPA any information they obtain that “reasonably supports the conclusion” that a chemical or mixture they manufacture, import, process, or distribute “presents a substantial risk of injury to health or the environment.”  We think that legal standard gives regulated parties too much discretion.

As we explained in Saving Science, DuPont began studying the human health effects of PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid, a chemical used in manufacturing Teflon) in 1978.  By 1981, the company had compiled reports about PFOA in pregnant workers and their offspring, developing “the first direct human evidence of PFOA crossing the placenta in humans …

Have you ever worried that your new car, van or SUV has too many seatbelts? Fear no more. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration just changed a federal regulation to make sure that only so many passengers can be safely belted in. And along the way, NHTSA is giving a gift to auto manufacturers by trying to protect them from lawsuits brought by accident victims.

The too-many-seatbelts notion is buried in the text of a new rule NHTSA published on October 8 (73 Fed. Reg. 58887). The rule defines the term, “designated seating position,” which the agency and automobile manufacturers use to determine where passengers can be expected to sit. Federal safety standards mandating how many seatbelts must be installed in a new vehicle, where airbags are placed, and other performance requirements all hinge on the number and location of designated seating positions.

NHTSA’s new rule …