This post, by Sarah Vogel, is cross-posted from The Pump Handle.

If you thought the scientific debate about bisphenol A was over or even quieting down, you haven’t been reading the latest issues of Toxicological Sciences. (What are you doing with your spare time?) Last month in an editorial piece published in the journal, Richard Sharpe queried: “Is It Time to End Concerns over the Estrogenic Effects of Bisphenol A?”  His answer was an unequivocal ‘yes’, based on the latest study from Ryan et al.  (published in the same issue) that found no reproductive effects from bisphenol A exposure in rats.  The study, according to Sharpe, “throws cold water on this controversy.”

Not so fast.  On Wednesday, February 17, 2010, the journal published a second letter to the editors, “Flawed Experimental Design Reveals the Need for Guidelines Requiring Appropriate Positive Controls in Endocrine Disruption Research,” by …

Ordinarily, if an organization with the word “recycling” in its name said unkind things about the Center for Progressive Reform, I’d worry. But the other week, we got dinged by a newly launched outfit called “Citizens for Recycling First,” and I’m thinking it’s a badge of honor.

Before proceeding, let’s dwell for a moment on the mental images the group’s name conjures up. I’m thinking about plastic bins with recycling logos on their sides, filled by conscientious Americans with soup cans, beer bottles, and aluminum foil.

Perhaps you pull up a different mental image. But whatever it is, I’m pretty sure it’s not a big hole in the ground with toxic coal ash in it. That little bit of misdirection is probably just what the marketing types of the coal and coal ash industry had in mind when this …

The congressional hearings so far on “sudden unintended acceleration” (SUA) in Toyota cars should have made two truths obvious to Washington policymakers. First, the strategy of counting on major manufacturers to voluntarily ensure that their consumer products are safe is unworkable in a competitive market, and second, safety agencies like the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) need to walk softly but carry a very large stick.

Gone are the days when we could reasonably expect government technical experts to shadow manufacturers’ design engineers in order to coax them into taking care, even in a market with fewer than ten major manufacturers. But NHTSA still should have stepped out in front of the strong industry trend to rely on electronic controls or, as it is colloquially known, “driving by wire,” which is the likely source of SUA, at least in the Camry, and required all manufacturers to …

Water pollution / water law on the front page of the Times and the Post on the same day?! Yep.

NYTimes: Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Hampering E.P.A.

WashPost: Rising with a bullet among top pollutants: Number Two

Thirty-eight years ago today, the dam holding back a massive coal-slurry impoundment (government-speak for a big pit filled with sludge) located in the middle of Buffalo Creek gave way, spilling 131 million gallons of black wastewater down the steep hills of West Virginia. The black waters eventually crested at 30 feet, washing away people, their houses, and their possessions. By the end of the catastrophe, 125 people were dead, 1,121 were injured, and more than 4,000 were left homeless.

Interviewed years later, Jack Spadaro, an engineer teaching at West Virginia’s School of Mines when the dam broke, told the West Virginia Gazette: “The thing that disgusted me was that people in the valley had been saying for years there was a problem there. They’d been evacuated many times before because of the fear of a dam failure.” Spadaro added, “I went through stacks …

Add arsenic to the list of carcinogenic chemicals that will see delayed regulation from EPA as a result of OMB’s meddling. Last week, after almost seven years’ work, EPA released a draft assessment of the bladder and lung cancer risks posed by arsenic in drinking water. But the release of the final arsenic risk assessment is being delayed while EPA’s Science Advisory Board is asked to take yet another look at agency scientists’ work. As Jonathan Strong wrote in InsideEPA (sub. req'd) last week, the recursive review by SAB is “emboldening” activists who want to delay any potential new drinking water regulations.

Demanding external peer review of EPA scientists’ work on just about anything is a standard tactic industry uses to bide time before they have to shell out the money to clean up the messes they’ve made. Witness Sen. David Vitter’s …

A few thousand fishermen and women are making port in Washington, D.C. today to rally against the best hope for the future of fishing. They don’t see it that way, of course, but a look at the evidence leaves no other conclusion.

The simple truth is that American waters have been overfished for years. When boats take out more fish than nature can replace, fish populations shrink. If fishing efforts doesn’t decrease to match the smaller fish population, the resulting overfishing creates a vicious cycle—each year’s catch takes a bigger and bigger percentage of the remaining fish, until finally there are so few fish that the entire fishery, and the jobs depending upon fishing, disappear. Unfortunately, we have reached that point of collapse with many of our northeast fisheries, like winter flounder, which is below 10 percent of the targeted level; and …

The Obama Administration struck a blow for transparency last week with the launch of an online dashboard allowing users to keep track of what the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is working on. Good for OIRA for making such information so readily available. CPR plans to put it to good use. 

This month we began an initiative of our own, CPR’s Eye on OIRA project. As the name suggests, we plan to keep careful tabs on what OIRA’s doing, what regs it has before it, how long they’ve been there, which lobbyists are meeting with which OIRA staff, whether OIRA is sticking to its deadlines, and what the end result of OIRA’s involvement turns out to be. The hard truth is that, even in the Obama Administration, OIRA is where industry focuses its efforts to weaken needed regulations. OIRA seems …