From the
By Janet Wilson
Times Staff Writer
In an unprecedented action, the Environmental
Protection Agency's own scientific panel on Friday challenged the agency's
proposed public health standards governing soot and dust.
The Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, mandated by Congress to review
such proposals, asserted Friday that the standards put forward by EPA
Administrator Stephen L. Johnson ignored most of the committee's earlier
recommendations and could lead to additional heart attacks, lung cancer and
respiratory ailments.
The
In December, Johnson proposed to slightly tighten the health standards that
state and local governments must meet in regulating industries and other
sources of pollution. But those standards, governing the smallest and most
hazardous particles of soot, were substantially weaker than the scientists'
recommendations.
Johnson also proposed to exempt rural areas and mining and agriculture
industries from standards governing larger coarse particles, and he declined to
adopt the panel's proposed haze reduction standards.
EPA officials are taking public comment on the proposed rules through April and
plan to meet a court deadline to adopt final standards by September.
Some panel members called the administrator's actions "egregious" and
said his proposals "twisted" or "misrepresented" their
recommendations.
"We are obligated to recommend something beneficial to public
health," said the panel's longest-serving member, Morton Lippmann, a professor of environmental medicine at New York
University School of Medicine.
After a teleconference Friday lasting nearly four hours, the committee members
decided to write a letter to Johnson laying out the scientific evidence for
their conclusions and urging him to reconsider his proposals.
It was the first time since the committee was established under the Clean Air
Act nearly 30 years ago that the committee had asked the EPA to change course,
according to EPA staffers and committee members.
"We're in uncharted waters here," acknowledged committee Chairwoman Rogene Henderson, an inhalation toxicologist. She said
their action was necessary because "the response of the administrator is
unprecedented in that he did not take our advice. It's most unusual for him not
to take the advice of his own science advisory body."
Several members said Johnson's proposals incorrectly said the committee had
called for eliminating the regulation of coarse particulates for mining and
agriculture.
Those exemptions have been lambasted by state and regional air regulators
across the nation, including officials from the
Panel member Richard Poirot, an environmental analyst
with
In a more conciliatory tone, many members also said that as part of their
earlier recommendations they should have communicated more clearly the reasons
for their views, praised EPA staffers' hard work and acknowledged that Johnson
as the policymaker had the final say.
Johnson was not available for comment Friday. But acting EPA air chief William Wehrum said:
"We greatly respect the input CASAC has given us so far. If they choose to
give us further input we will … certainly consider it carefully as we move
forward to make any final decision."
He said that the EPA had made "every effort" to explain why it did
not follow all of the panel's findings and that it was seeking broad comment on
the panel's recommendations as well as the proposed rules.
"The science behind particulate matter is extremely complex, and there's a
lot of it out there. We know there's a diversity of opinion," he said.
The California Environmental Protection Agency, the California Air Resources
Board, other air-quality regulators and environmentalists have denounced the
EPA particulate proposals.
Cal/EPA's air pollution epidemiology chief, Bart Ostro,
charged during the teleconference that the EPA had incorporated
"last-minute opinions and edits" by the White House Office of
Management and Budget that "circumvented the entire peer review
process."
He said research that he and others had conducted also had been misrepresented
in the EPA's lengthy justification for the proposed new standards.
In an interview later, Ostro said he was referring to
marked-up drafts of Johnson's proposals that showed changes by the White House
budget office and language that was "very close to some of the letters
written by some of the trade associations."
He said the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee's seven-year review of data
on health risks of particulate matter had been replaced with inaccurate
conclusions about the science that could lead to "thousands more
deaths," especially from fine particulates that lodge deep in the lungs.
Alex Conant, a spokesman for the White House budget
office, would say only that the agency "reviews rules as part of a routine
regulatory process" and that the ultimate decision on rulemaking rests
with the EPA.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) wrote to Johnson on
Friday afternoon requesting that the EPA provide her with documents related to
the EPA's proposed standards, including material showing the agency's contacts
with the Office of Management and Budget and with representatives of the mining
and agricultural industries.
"These changes benefit mining and agricultural interests at the expense of
public health," she wrote.
In a public statement, she added: "The revelation that the OMB has
intervened to gut the scientific recommendations is an outrage, but not
surprising."
State air regulators have said the EPA's new standards could harm residents in
the
Some
The American Mining Assn. has supported the EPA's proposed new rules and says
very little dust is generated by industry operations in remote areas.
Dan Riedinger, a spokesman for the Edison Electric
Institute, whose members generate about 60% of
He said that the EPA had already identified nearly 200 new studies on
particulates since the scientific panel reviewed data four years ago and that
"a complete review of the scientific literature and regulations already in
place suggests that tightening the fine particle standard at this point isn't
necessary."
"In addition to giving crucial studies short shrift," he said,
"EPA's proposal fails to reflect dramatic air-quality improvements made in
recent years and additional improvements underway."
EPA staffers told the panel Friday that they were gathering new studies to
evaluate before a final decision was made. Karen Martin of the EPA's Office of
Air Quality Planning and Standards said there would not be time for the panel
or public to comment on the EPA's future findings on the new studies before the
rules were finalized.