EPA Orders Employees to Remove YouTube Climate Video

Re-posted from Twighlight Earth.

The Environmental Protection Agency has ordered two of its attorneys to remove a video they posted on YouTube about problems with climate change legislation.

The couple had received clearance for posting the video but EPA took issue with its content following publication of an op-ed piece by the two in The Washington Post on October 31.

On November 5, 2009, EPA ethics officials ordered the two veteran employees to –

• “Remove your climate change video from You Tube by the close of business on Friday, November 6, 2009″;
• “Edit your You Tube video…by:
  • Removing the language starting at 1:06 min – ‘Our opinions are based on
    more than 20 years each working as attorneys at the U.S. Environmental
    Protection Agency in the San Francisco Regional Office.’
  • Removing the images of EPA’s building starting at 1:06 min…
  • Remove [sic] the language starting at 6:30 min – ‘In my work at EPA,
    I’ve been overseeing California’s cap-and-trade and offset programs for
    more than 20 years.’”
• “All future requests for approval of an outside writing activity must be accompanied by a
  draft of the document that is the subject of the approval request…”

“EPA is abusing ethics rules to gag two conscientious employees who have every right to speak out as citizens,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, who has re-posted the original video and its script. “EPA reversed itself because someone in headquarters had a tantrum about their Washington Post essay.”

Industry Thwarting Research

As the economy continues to slump, publicly funded research is also drying up. Are there risks associated with private industry funding research, and if so, how do we, as citizens, read research with a concerning eye? An article published in the New York Times yesterday by Andrew Pollack: Crop Scientist Say Biotechnology Seed Companies Are Thwarting Research addresses biased research in agriculture.

A statement made to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by 26 scientists was posted to a non-rule making docket titled: Evaluation of the Resistance Risks from Using a Seed Mix Refuge with Pioneer's Optimum AcreMax 1 Corn Rootworm-Protected Corn. The statement says:

"Technology/stewardship agreements required for the purchase of genetically modified seed explicitly prohibit research. These agreements inhibit public scientists from pursuing their mandated role on behalf of the public good unless the research is approved by industry. As a result of restricted access, no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology, its performance, its management implications, IRM, and its interactions with insect biology. Consequently, data flowing to an EPA Scientific Advisory Panel from the public sector is unduly limited."

In other words, some scientists feel as if industry has a chokehold not only on the research that is being conducted, but on what is actually being disseminated to the public. This research problem is largely under-reported and under-addressed to a science illiterate public. An article by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry called Who's Getting It Right and Who's Getting in Wrong in the Debate About Science Literacy, dives deeper into this equally important issue. You can add science based blogs to your RSS here.

Research should be a public good and government should be conducting research to protect the wellbeing of its citizens from corporate strongholds. Another example of the system failing by Tom Phillpot of the Grist is in the issue of Why is the FDA unwilling to study evidence of mercury in high-fructose corn syrup? I would argue much has to do with skill. The Crème de la Crop of scientists and research are easily enticed by high paying jobs in industry, not in regulatory positions at FDA. The FDA lacks man power and funding. On the flip side, those who are working in for the public interest (i.e. the scientists who just published their statement to the EPA) are being manipulated as well.

A professor at Tufts, Sheldon Krimsky, has done extensive work on the effects of industry on research. He argues that a series of laws, federal policies and court decisions have enabled private interest "stakeholder science" to gain influence over university research. His book "Science in the Private Interest"sparked a website that continues to address these issues.

The key to change, Krimsky says, is separating the financial interests from the science. A daunting task indeed.

EPA—Cleaning up Rocket Fuel not Meaningful

The Environmental Protection Agency, whose job it is to ensure safe drinking water has reached a draft conclusion that mandating a cleaning up toxic rocket fuel would not result in a "meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction for persons served by public water-systems."

The decision, which has been reviewed by the Associated Press has not yet been made public, but has made its way into the media.

The "rocket fuel" ingredient the EPA is referring to is called perchlorate.

According to Wikipedia:

Perchlorate greatly impacts human health by interfering with iodide uptake into the thyroid gland. In adults, the thyroid gland helps regulate the metabolism by releasing hormones, while in children, the thyroid helps in proper development.

From the EPA website:

EPA has established an official reference dose for perchlorate which is consistent with the recommended reference dose included in the National Academy of Science's January 2005 report. A reference dose is a scientific estimate of a daily exposure level that is not expected to cause adverse health effects in humans. The reference dose will be used in EPA's ongoing efforts to address perchlorate in drinking water. It is important to note that the reference dose in EPA's draft assessment represents a preliminary estimate of a protective health level and is not a drinking water standard.

From the Associated Press

The ingredient, perchlorate, has been found in at least 395 sites in 35 states at levels high enough to interfere with thyroid function and pose developmental health risks, particularly for babies and fetuses, according to some scientists.

The EPA document says that mandating a clean-up level for perchlorate would not result in a "meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction for persons served by public-water systems."

The conclusion, which caps years of dispute over the issue, was denounced by Democrats and environmentalists who accused the EPA of caving to pressure from the Pentagon.