phalen, robert

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/10/tony-cox-trumps-air-pollution-adviser-clean-air-saves-no-lives/">https://www.motherjones.com/environment<b>/2018/10</b>/tony-cox-trumps-air-pollution-adviser-clean-air-saves-no-lives/</a></div><div>
</div><div>reveal]</div><div>
</div><div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;spring, air pollution researchers from around the world gathered to discuss their latest findings. Among them were scientists who led landmark studies linking smog and soot to deadly health problems.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">So it was shocking when one speaker essentially told everyone in the room that they were wrong.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>In his half-hour presentation, Tony Cox, a risk analyst from Denver, claimed that researchers are overstating the dangers of air pollution.</b>&nbsp;He explained how his own statistical modeling of health data found no connection between dirty air and respiratory problems or heart attacks.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Scientists and others at the Health Effects Institute annual conference were appalled. Some added to their speeches what they had thought was obvious: Yes, air pollution really is dangerous.</p><div class="incontent-promo" id="incontent_promo_1" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: rgb(242, 243, 239); position: relative; left: -358.156px; height: auto; width: 100vw; margin-bottom: 1rem; clear: both; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><section id="mj-incontent-ad-widget-4" class="widget mj-incontent-ad-widget" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="incontent-ad-container" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 1300px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px;" /></section></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cox might have been just shrugged off as a provocateur, a denier of established science. But he leads the Trump administration’s panel of scientists that offers advice on how to protect the health of about 126 million Americans who live in smoggy and sooty places.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In that role, he’s in a prime position to spread his skepticism of the science of air pollution: The Environmental Protection Agency is poised&nbsp;<a href="https://cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_report.cfm?Lab=NCEA&dirEntryId=341593" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">this year</a>&nbsp;to review its health standards for fine particles known as PM2.5 and ozone, the main component of smog.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">These decisions, scientists say, literally could mean life and death for people in cities across the United States.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The EPA’s seven-member Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, which has been completely remade under President Donald Trump, is responsible for reviewing the science and advising the EPA on what level of pollution is unhealthy. Cox was appointed a year ago, and earlier this month, all remaining holdovers from the Obama administration were replaced with&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/acting-administrator-wheeler-announces-science-advisors-key-clean-air-act-committee" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">new appointees</a>, including two who also downplay the threats of breathing polluted air.</b></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Powerful industries—such as power companies, vehicle manufacturers and oil companies—oppose tighter health standards because they would force states to adopt costly rules that cut emissions.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act,&nbsp;<b>Cox was nominated for the science board’s top position by the US Chamber of Commerce,&nbsp;</b>which has&nbsp;<a href="https://www.uschamber.com/issue-brief/ozone-national-ambient-air-quality-standards" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">sued</a>&nbsp;the EPA multiple times in an effort to loosen air pollution standards. The nomination came from&nbsp;<b><a href="https://www.uschamber.com/dan-byers" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">Dan Byers</a>&nbsp;of the chamber’s Global Energy Institute,&nbsp;</b>who leads “efforts to&nbsp;<b>promote and maintain coal</b>’s vital role in America’s energy system.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cox has made his living challenging established science on behalf of industry. He has worked as a consultant for more than a dozen companies or industry groups that lobby against clean air or worker safety rules and are major sources of pollution, according to his&nbsp;<a href="https://cox-associates.com/risk-analysis/" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">website</a>.&nbsp;<b>He consulted for the American Petroleum Institute, which represents oil and gas companies, and the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, which represents makers of diesel and gasoline engines. He also consulted for the mining industry and tobacco giant Philip Morris.</b></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Industries hire Cox to sow doubt about the scientific evidence, to make the case that agencies don’t have any proof,” said Celeste Monforton, a worker safety advocate who worked at the Department of Labor in the 1990s. “Already, there’s some reticence around regulation. If you can introduce more doubt, it can be very effective.”</p><div class="incontent-promo" id="incontent_promo_3" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: rgb(242, 243, 239); position: relative; left: -358.156px; height: auto; width: 100vw; margin-bottom: 1rem; clear: both; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><section id="mj-incontent-ad-widget-11" class="widget mj-incontent-ad-widget" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="incontent-ad-container" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 1300px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px;" /></section></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>In an interview, Cox said there is no proof that cleaning air saves lives. He also has written that there’s no link between fine particle pollution and human health and that the health benefits from reducing ozone are “<a href="https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF03/20150616/103610/HHRG-114-IF03-Wstate-CoxL-20150616.pdf" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">exaggerated</a>.”</b></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Folks talk a good game and maybe fool themselves and others for a decade or so with feel-good projections and estimates, while all the time, the public gets zero actual measurable health benefits in terms of reduced death rates caused by the intervention,” Cox said.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Numerous scientific studies around the world have reported the same results for two decades: Fine particles and ozone raise the risk of people dying from&nbsp;<a href="https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/full/10.1289/EHP3766" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">asthma</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28735838" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">heart attacks</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29283681" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">pneumonia</a>&nbsp;and other serious lung and heart ailments, and cleaning the air reduces deaths and hospitalizations.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cox is “clearly outside the mainstream,” said Chris Zarba, who led the EPA staff overseeing the science boards for six years until he retired in February. “He is not someone I would have picked. You want some diversity (on the board), you want some outsiders, but only up to a point.”</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Air pollution experts also have raised concerns about the expertise of the rest of the panel, with only one member with a medical or health background. None is an epidemiologist, the primary discipline that investigates human health effects of pollution. Five of the seven are engineers or toxicologists.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">George Thurston, who served on a subcommittee of the clean air board under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, is worried that the changes under Trump will skew the panel’s nonpartisan science advisory work.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Special interests get ahold of it and misrepresent the results,” said Thurston, who directs a program studying human health effects of air pollution at New York University’s School of Medicine. “And all the time, you’re delaying the public health benefits of regulation. That’s the goal.”</p><h3 class="subheader" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 1.40625rem; line-height: 1.3; font-family: Mallory, sans-serif; margin: 2rem 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">No medical or health training</span></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Cox’s background as a statistician—with degrees in risk analysis, mathematical economics and operations research—makes him an unconventional fit compared with the doctors and scientists who traditionally have led the air pollution panel.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">&nbsp;His focus is risk analysis, a mathematical field designed to bring order to uncertain situations in which data is scarce or messy. He has no medical or health training.</span></p><div class="incontent-promo" id="incontent_promo_5" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: rgb(242, 243, 239); position: relative; left: -358.156px; height: auto; width: 100vw; margin-bottom: 1rem; clear: both; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><section id="mj-incontent-ad-widget-10" class="widget mj-incontent-ad-widget" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="incontent-ad-container" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 1300px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px;" /></section></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Cox is the editor-in-chief of&nbsp;</b><a href="http://www.sra.org/sra-journal" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");"><b>Risk Analysis: An International Journa</b>l</a>&nbsp;and was inducted into the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nae.edu/cms/56125.aspx" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">National Academy of Engineering</a>&nbsp;for “applications of operations research and risk analysis to significant national problems.” He designed a toolkit for analyzing cause and effect that he described as a “totally dispassionate and honest mechanical” means of clearing away statistical noise.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cox relies on a strategy that’s commonly applied by major corporations seeking to limit regulation: He plays on the uncertainty inherent in all scientific analyses.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Take particulate matter, tiny pieces of soot a fraction of the diameter of a human hair, which come from burning fuel in smokestacks and vehicles. The particles can lodge in the lungs and enter the bloodstream, inflaming lung diseases such as asthma and raising the risk of a heart attack.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Long-term studies of multiple cities by Harvard University, the University of Southern California and other schools have linked reduced particulate levels to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa1414123" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">improved lung development</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5679287/" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">respiratory health</a>&nbsp;in children and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8179653" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">more deaths</a>&nbsp;from heart attacks and lung diseases on days when fine particles increase.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But when Cox applies his statistical model to the same data, he reaches a different conclusion.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;That’s because he is searching for factors other than pollution that may drive deaths. For instance, when he analyzed data on 100 cities, he reported “no evidence that reductions in PM2.5 concentrations cause reductions in mortality rates.” Instead, his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23707535" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">analysis</a>&nbsp;concluded that it was temperature driving deaths. (Colder air can trap particles close to the ground, so the two factors often come together.) In other analyses, Cox pointed to income as a bigger factor than pollution.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Most of the evidence of health benefits “when looked at carefully turns out to consist of a mix of bad statistics, wishful thinking and irresponsible claims,” Cox said.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Epidemiologists say there’s a role for causal analysis like Cox’s. But they say it can’t replace the large studies that show what happens to people’s health when real-world pollutant levels rise and fall, combined with controlled experiments exposing people and animals</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Cause and effect is extremely difficult to prove in public health; instead, scientists search for repeated associations between sickness and pollution levels.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For instance, when a Utah steel mill that was releasing soot into the air shut down for 13 months, the number of children admitted to hospitals for asthma attacks and bronchitis dropped, according to one&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00039896.1991.9937434" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">study</a>. Once the mill reopened and the emissions returned, admissions nearly doubled.</p><div class="incontent-promo" id="incontent_promo_7" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: rgb(242, 243, 239); position: relative; left: -358.156px; height: auto; width: 100vw; margin-bottom: 1rem; clear: both; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><section id="mj-incontent-ad-widget-9" class="widget mj-incontent-ad-widget" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="incontent-ad-container" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 1300px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px;" /></section></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The researchers couldn’t declare without a doubt that closing the mill improved children’s health. But C. Arden Pope, a Brigham Young University professor and the study’s author, said the evidence leaves no other conclusion. He said no one has found a “magical confounder” that could explain why twice as many children are hospitalized with asthma attacks when the steel mill operates.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“A lot of what (Cox) says is manufactured uncertainty,” said Gretchen Goldman, research director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “If there’s a science-based rule, opponents will try to emphasize the uncertainty in the science to obscure its benefits.”</p><h3 class="subheader" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 1.40625rem; line-height: 1.3; font-family: Mallory, sans-serif; margin: 2rem 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Industry ties on science boards</span></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The air pollution board isn’t the only one the Trump administration has overhauled. Cox’s appointment came after then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt booted scientists from all advisory panels if they had received EPA research grants. That means most academics no longer qualify, while people with ties to polluting industries swamp the panels.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">An&nbsp;<a href="https://www.revealnews.org/article/epa-swaps-top-science-advisers-with-industry-allies/" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">investigation</a>&nbsp;by&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: inherit;">Reveal</em>&nbsp;from the Center for Investigative Reporting found that 16 of the Trump administration’s 18 replacements for the EPA’s larger, broader Science Advisory Board last year had industry ties.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;<b>The board’s new chairman, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality toxicology director Michael Honeycutt, has&nbsp;</b></span><b><a href="http://energyindepth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Shaw-Lange-and-Honeycutt-EM-2015-Ozone-Health-Benefits.pdf" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">cast doubt</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;on the effectiveness of EPA clean air rules. Another member, Robert Phalen, once said modern air is&nbsp;“</span><a href="https://www.aaas.org/blog/member-spotlight/robert-phalen-tests-our-modern-air" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">a little too clean for optimum health</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.”</span></b></p><div class="incontent-promo" id="incontent_promo_8" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: rgb(242, 243, 239); position: relative; left: -358.156px; height: auto; width: 100vw; margin-bottom: 1rem; clear: both; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><section id="mj-incontent-ad-widget-8" class="widget mj-incontent-ad-widget" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="incontent-ad-container" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 1300px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px;" /></section></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cox’s work for industry often has disputed science supporting regulations. In 2014, Cox spoke at a public hearing on behalf of the American Chemistry Council, which represents chemical companies, arguing against a proposed federal rule tightening limits on worker exposure to silica dust. He called the government’s assessment, which linked low levels to lung disease, “not ready for prime time.”</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">His testimony prompted a fiery retort from a nationally known scientist: Robert Park of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health&nbsp;<a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=OSHA-2010-0034-3576" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">told the hearing audience</a>&nbsp;that it was “ludicrous” for Cox to question “100 years of research” showing silica’s health effects.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“We aren’t stupid,” Park told him.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For diesel engine manufacturers, Cox criticized science that links diesel exhaust to lung cancer. Diesels are a major source of the fine particles that his panel will review.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>A 2012&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3375489/" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">study</a>&nbsp;by Cox, partially funded by Philip Morris, found that smoking 10 or fewer cigarettes per day didn’t raise the risk of heart disease.&nbsp;</b>According to his website, he also consulted for the tobacco company multiple times between 2004 and 2009, including questioning whether smoking causes lung cancer and other lung diseases.</p><div class="incontent-promo" id="incontent_promo_9" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: rgb(242, 243, 239); position: relative; left: -358.156px; height: auto; width: 100vw; margin-bottom: 1rem; clear: both; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><section id="mj-incontent-ad-widget-7" class="widget mj-incontent-ad-widget" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="incontent-ad-container" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 1300px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px;" /></section></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The National Mining Association retained him in 2011 to&nbsp;<a href="https://arlweb.msha.gov/regs/comments/2010-25249/AB64-COMM-74-12.pdf" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">testify</a>&nbsp;against a rule that would limit miners’ exposure to coal dust to combat&nbsp;<b>black lung</b>&nbsp;disease. In addition, the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association funded a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3109/10408444.2013.777689" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">2013 paper</a>&nbsp;he wrote questioning the links between cancers and proximity to California rock mines.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Industry representatives often have served on EPA panels. George Wolff, a scientist for General Motors, led the clean air panel for three years in the 1990s. But under previous administrations, they were in the minority, outweighed by voices from academia.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>EPA Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler earlier this month&nbsp;<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/10/14/epa-scraps-pair-air-pollution-science-panels/?utm_term=.3db2c4ad2f44" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">disbanded</a>&nbsp;a large subcommittee of scientists that reviewed health effects of particulates and scrapped plans to create one for ozone</b>. That means the EPA will rely on the seven panelists rather than two dozen or more specialized experts when it decides whether to loosen or tighten air standards.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“You can’t say you are serious about the views of the scientific community and then limit the expertise at the table,” said John Bachmann, a former EPA director for science policy on air quality under the George W. Bush administration. “It is a travesty.”</p><div class="incontent-promo" id="incontent_promo_10" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: rgb(242, 243, 239); position: relative; left: -358.156px; height: auto; width: 100vw; margin-bottom: 1rem; clear: both; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><section id="mj-incontent-ad-widget-6" class="widget mj-incontent-ad-widget" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="incontent-ad-container" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 1300px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px;" /></section></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>One new air pollution board member is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Timothy_Lewis4" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">Timothy Lewis</a>, an aquatic ecology engineer with the Army Corps of Engineers whose work focuses on controlling invasive species in waterways. He has no apparent expertise in human effects of air pollution.</b></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Another new member is Sabine Lange, a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality toxicologist who has publicly questioned the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.energyindepth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Shaw-Lange-and-Honeycutt-EM-2015-Ozone-Health-Benefits.pdf" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">impact of ozone pollution</a>&nbsp;on health and collaborated with Honeycutt on a<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30049975" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">&nbsp;study</a>&nbsp;criticizing the EPA’s benefits analysis for the standard.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Joining them is Steven Packham, a Utah Division of Air Quality toxicologist. Even though Salt Lake City has some of the nation’s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lung.org/our-initiatives/healthy-air/sota/city-rankings/most-polluted-cities.html" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">worst particulate pollution</a>, Packham&nbsp;<a href="https://www.hjnews.com/allaccess/air-quality-impacts-health-professor-says/article_406e0713-fb38-554c-a2f5-4efaf3c86092.html" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">said in 2016</a>, “We don’t have enough data to say PM2.5 is causing the health effects that we’re attributing to it.”</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The sole medical voice on the panel is&nbsp;<a href="https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/people/20996116-mark-w-frampton" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">Dr. Mark Frampton</a>, a pulmonologist with the University of Rochester Medical Center who has studied the health effects of air pollutants, including leading the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.healtheffects.org/publication/multicenter-ozone-study-older-subjects-moses-part-1-effects-exposure-low-concentrations" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">largest systematic study</a>&nbsp;exposing patients to ozone. In a 2011&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3172884/" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">editorial</a>&nbsp;in a medical journal, Frampton said that as health effects emerge at lower levels of ozone, the economic costs could become untenable, so “we need to consider new regulatory approaches in achieving the cleanest air possible and minimizing harm.”</span></p><div class="incontent-promo" id="incontent_promo_11" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: rgb(242, 243, 239); position: relative; left: -358.156px; height: auto; width: 100vw; margin-bottom: 1rem; clear: both; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><section id="mj-incontent-ad-widget-5" class="widget mj-incontent-ad-widget" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="incontent-ad-container" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 1300px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px;" /></section></div><h3 class="subheader" style="box-sizing: inherit; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-stretch: normal; font-size: 1.40625rem; line-height: 1.3; font-family: Mallory, sans-serif; margin: 2rem 0px 1rem; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;">Stakes are high in many cities</span></h3><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">There’s a lot at stake for the public: More than&nbsp;<a href="https://www3.epa.gov/airquality/greenbook/jnsum.html" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">124 million people</a>&nbsp;in 201 US counties live in places where the air is considered unhealthy for ozone, and&nbsp;<a href="https://www3.epa.gov/airquality/greenbook/knsum.html" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">more than 23 million</a>&nbsp;people breathe air with unhealthful levels of fine particles. Included are the Los Angeles region, Houston, New York, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and Sacramento, California. The elderly, children and people with cardiovascular or lung diseases are most at risk.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The clean air panel is the scientific filter for EPA policymakers who set the health standards. First, the panelists review a massive collection of studies assembled by EPA staff to say where the science is strongest and where uncertainty exists. That’s followed by an assessment of what the potential health effects are at various pollution levels.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Finally, the panel produces a recommendation for a safe air quality level. The federal Clean Air Act mandates that the standards be bounded strictly by science, not costs. The EPA does not have to adopt the recommendation, but a definitive scientific review from the panel is hard for the agency to ignore.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“Cox is someone who can go out and put in all kinds of weasel words,” said Bachmann, the former EPA official. “He can weaken all the evidence we have.”</p><div class="incontent-promo" id="incontent_promo_12" style="box-sizing: inherit; background: rgb(242, 243, 239); position: relative; left: -358.156px; height: auto; width: 100vw; margin-bottom: 1rem; clear: both; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px;"><section id="mj-incontent-ad-widget-3" class="widget mj-incontent-ad-widget" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="incontent-ad-container" style="box-sizing: inherit; max-width: 1300px; margin: 0px auto; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px;" /></section></div><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Cox said he isn’t trying to stop the EPA from reducing pollution, but wants to offer “a more accurate and nuanced understanding of what we can control.” He said he hopes he can “help clarify and communicate clearly and precisely about what is known and what remains uncertain.”</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">But the new makeup of the science panel comes with other changes to the EPA’s review process for clean air standards. Pruitt in May&nbsp;<a href="https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-05/documents/image2018-05-09-173219.pdf" wp-content="wp-content" themes="themes" motherjones="motherjones" css="css" img="img" orange-border.png="orange-border.png" background-repeat="background-repeat" repeat-x="repeat-x" text-shadow="text-shadow" rgb="rgb" px="px" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; background-position: 0px 90%; background-image: url("");">outlined</a>&nbsp;a streamlined review—removing some opportunities to challenge faulty assumptions—and asked the science panel for the first time to advise the EPA on adverse “social, economic or energy effects” of attaining standards.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Zarba, the former EPA official, worries that those changes could give air pollution skeptics such as Cox more power to bake in their conclusions from the start.</p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1rem; font-family: Calluna, serif; font-size: 19px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“If you cherry-pick the science a certain way,” Zarba said, “you can get whatever answer you want.”</p></div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=85f77dc2ad&e=06876ede6b" style="text-decoration-line: none;">EPA Science Advisers Push Back on Wheeler, Saying He's Minimizing Their Role</a>
BY: MARIANNE LAVELLE
Under Trump, the EPA administrator — a former coal lobbyist — is also pushing a plan to reduce the use of science in policy making.&nbsp;<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://insideclimatenews.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7c733794100bcc7e083a163f0&id=dfe9d794ae&e=06876ede6b" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Read More</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05062019/epa-wheeler-science-advisory-board-meeting-limiting-scientific-studies-trump-methane-rule"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05062019/epa-wheeler-science-advisory-board-meeting-limiting-scientific-studies-trump-methane-rule</font></a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><div class="content" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler vowed on Wednesday to make greater use of the agency's official board of science advisers. But soon after he spoke, some of those advisers and other outside experts protested that the agency was instead limiting their role.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wheeler took the unusual step of addressing the first meeting in a year of the Science Advisory Board (SAB), a group of advisers established by law who should be holding six to eight meetings annually, according to its charter. The reason he was there, Wheeler said, was to show his commitment to a better process.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I'm glad to be here to lay out a new direction for how EPA interacts with and uses the SAB," he said. "I will be the first to admit we have not utilized you the way that we should. We can and we will do better."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp;<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/31052018/epa-science-advisory-board-review-pruitt-climate-change-clean-power-plan-auto-standards-secret-science-policy" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Science Advisory Board</a>&nbsp;has become a center of controversy as President&nbsp;<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/donald-trump" style="background-color: transparent; box-sizing: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Donald Trump</a>'s administration has sought to remake the federal agencies. Researchers who receive EPA grant money have been barred from serving on the board, while several industry consultants and contrarian scientists have been brought aboard. Although some holdovers remain from previous administrations, Trump-era appointees now make up a large portion of the 44-member body. Some of them are known for their outlying views beyond the prevailing scientific consensus, or for representing the interests of regulated businesses.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Noting the lengthy vetting process for appointees, Wheeler said, "Why should we have talented public servants go through all of that only to use you sparingly? Today we are beginning the transition to a new process. It's no secret that the process was broken, and was not beneficial to the EPA, the board, or the public we all serve."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But some members of the board parried with Wheeler and other EPA officials at the meeting over exactly what part of the process is broken—the advisory process, or how the Trump administration is proceeding with a deregulatory agenda that gives less weight to some of the science that has guided the agency for years.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-e6dd6446-7fff-70db-217e-10397602c482" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One SAB member who is a holdover from before Trump, Steven Hamburg, chief scientist of the Environmental Defense Fund, asked Wheeler why the Science Advisory Board had not had an opportunity to weigh in on some of the latest science in the agency's repeal of the Obama administration's regulations on control of methane emissions from oil and gas operations. The SAB raised concerns over that proposal when it met a year ago, and it had an opportunity to confer with another group of outside EPA experts, the Clean Air Science Advisory Committee, but Hamburg said their focus was more on technology than science. EDF, an environmental group, has been involved in a number of large scientific studies on the extent of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, released by the oil and gas industry.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wheeler said that in the future, he hoped to involve the Science Advisory Board earlier in the process—soon after proposals are made public, but he couldn't change what happened in the past.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The one you cite—I'm sorry, it's too late in the regulatory process," Wheeler said. "I can't go back and reopen some of the regulations we've already done." The agency finished taking public comment on its&nbsp;<a href="https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=EPA-HQ-OAR-2017-0483" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">methane proposal&nbsp;</a>last December, but has not yet finalized a rule.</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-49ad7408-7fff-8715-10a2-1e3cf9935c7d" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One public commenter, John Bachmann, a 33-year veteran of the EPA who is now retired, said that under the 1978 law that governs the EPA's use of its science advisory board, the agency is actually required to provide its regulatory proposals and the underlying science to the Science Advisory Board before a proposal is made public. Bachmann now works with the Environmental Protection Network, a group of former agency scientists and other staffers who have been critical of the EPA's moves under the Trump administration.</font></span></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.333;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wheeler's Controversial 'Secret Science' Plan</font></h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But much of the debate at the first day of a two-day meeting centered on a controversial policy proposal that Wheeler said he was committed to finalizing this year even though it had provoked an outcry that left him "a little shocked."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The proposal, called "Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science," would limit the kinds of science the agency can use in its decision-making. The agency received&nbsp;<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15082018/epa-secret-science-rule-opposition-health-environmental-data-public-comments" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">some 600,000 comments</a>&nbsp;on the proposal, including from leading scientific journals, professional organizations and universities. Because many human health studies rely on information gathered under confidentiality agreements, and the raw data has not been made public, the proposal could&nbsp;<a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/22032018/epa-air-pollution-soot-rules-scott-pruitt-secret-science-policy-health-regulations" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">prevent the agency&nbsp;</a>from using some of the seminal studies underpinning air pollution regulations, for example.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Barbara Morrissey, of Washington State's Department of Health, sitting on the board on an ex officio basis as chair of another advisory group, the Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee, told Wheeler she was concerned about how EPA could meet its legal requirement of using the best available science, if that science can't be replicated in the manner the EPA envisions.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wheeler said there would be "a safeguard" in the system, giving the EPA Administrator the discretion to include an important study even if it can't be replicated. "I do fundamentally believe that the more information we put out, the more sound our decisions will be and the more easily understood and accepted by the public," Wheeler said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But one public commenter, Veena Singla, associate director of the reproductive and environmental health program at the University of California, San Francisco, said her concerns about the proposal were not assuaged.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Having a political appointee deciding what science is in or out of policymaking is not a safeguard, but rather a fundamentally biased process," Singla said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Before the meeting, the EPA had given the Science Advisory Board a charge to weigh in on two narrow aspects of that rule—how the agency should deal with confidential business information, and how to shield personally identifiable information in the large health studies that in the past have been the basis for much of the agency's decision-making.</font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.333;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SAB 'Should Be Giving an Independent Look'</font></h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Allison Cullen, associate dean of the school of public policy and governance at the University of Washington, was one of several board members who objected to the fact that the scope of comments that the EPA sought from the SAB was being limited—in contrast, she said, the public had been asked to comment on the proposed regulation broadly.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The SAB is an independent body that should be giving an independent look at this, not necessarily responding to what the public comments are," Cullen said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hamburg said that the time frame that the SAB had been given to weigh in on the measure was also too compressed for the board to weigh in effectively. "There's a lack of transparency about this 'transparency' proposal," said Hamburg. "It's inconsistent with what the administrator says about wanting to fix a broken system."</font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.333;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">New Appointees Side with Wheeler</font></h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But several of the board members who were appointed by Wheeler and by his predecessor, former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, praised the agency for its effort.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">New SAB member Robert Phalen, an air pollution researcher at the Irvine campus of the University of California,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> has long been critical of the air pollution studies that the EPA has relied on,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> which use raw data not available to the public. "A short cut—if a study cannot be replicated for privacy concerns, probably the alternative is to simply drop that from consideration and rely on the vast amount of other studies. That's just a raw suggestion from an SAB member."</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Stanley Young, a statistician who did work for the pharmaceutical industry and others before being appointed to the SAB by Pruitt, said that there should be no privacy concerns in epidemiology studies that track mortality. "Once a person is dead, they are not considered a person," he said. He said he hoped that the agency was prepared for "epidemiological foot dragging and stonewalling" about release of its data.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The SAB will be holding a teleconference with the EPA later this summer to further discuss the transparency rule.</font></p></div></div></div></div><div class="tagged-with" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; text-transform: uppercase; margin-bottom: 1em;"><label style="box-sizing: inherit; display: block; line-height: 1.2;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PUBLISHED UNDER:</font></label><div class="field field-name-field-topics field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topics/regulation" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">REGULATION</font></a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/andrew-wheeler" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">ANDREW WHEELER</a></font></font></font></font></div>&nbsp;<div class="field-item odd" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/topic/epa" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">EPA</a></div>&nbsp;<div class="field-item even" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline-block; padding-right: 0.5em;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/tags/donald-trump" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="" style="box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; text-decoration-line: none;">DONALD TRUMP</a></div></div></div></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">reveal:</font></div><div><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">New board member<b style="">&nbsp;Robert Phalen, who directs the Air Pollution Health Effects Laboratory at the University of California, Irvine,</b>&nbsp;asked the<a href="http://jhppl.dukejournals.org/content/21/3/515.short" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">&nbsp;Center for Indoor Air Research</a>&nbsp;– a tobacco industry body founded to counter evidence that secondhand smoke causes cancer – to<a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=szvd0218" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">&nbsp;fund a grant</a>&nbsp;of more than $311,000 to study “interactions among indoor aerosols.” Phalen submitted his proposal three times, but the group&nbsp;<a href="https://www.industrydocumentslibrary.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=pxdg0054" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">rejected his request</a>&nbsp;in 1997, saying his hypothesis “seems implausible.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">”</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The center was disbanded in 1998 after the tobacco companies agreed to stop sponsoring research as part of a landmark&nbsp;<a href="http://www.publichealthlawcenter.org/sites/default/files/resources/tclc-fs-msa-overview-2015.pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">settlement</a>&nbsp;of a federal lawsuit that charged the industry with conspiring to hide the dangers of smoking for decades.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In an email to Reveal, <b>Phalen said he did not recall seeking any grants from the tobacco-funded group.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Phalen also has discounted some of the health effects of air pollution. In a&nbsp;<a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1080/15401420490900245" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">2004 report</a>, he wrote that the risks of breathing particulate pollution “are very small and confounded by many factors.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aaas.org/blog/member-spotlight/robert-phalen-tests-our-modern-air" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; line-height: inherit;">told</a>&nbsp;the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012, “Modern air is a little too clean for optimum health.” Children’s lungs, he was quoted as saying, need to be exposed to irritants to learn how to ward them off.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; font-size: small; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.4; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2528642/" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit;">&nbsp;studies</a>&nbsp;repeatedly have shown that children are highly susceptible to air pollution for a variety of reasons, including because they breathe more air per pound of weight, have immature immune systems and spend more time exerting themselves outdoors.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/environment/wall-shame-top-10-climate-deniers-trump-administration">https://www.alternet.org/environment/wall-shame-top-10-climate-deniers-trump-administration</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">usual suspects plus&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Earlier this month, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt fired a handful of university researchers from the EPA’s Scientific Advisory board and apparently&nbsp;<a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/epa-science-advisers-replaced_us_59fa2b75e4b0b0c7fa37bd17" style="text-decoration-line: none;">forgot to tell them</a>—at least two told the Huffington Post they learned about their dismissal from reporters. This came after Pruitt&nbsp;<a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/epa-advisory-boards_us_59f8d140e4b046017faf692b" style="text-decoration-line: none;">released new rules</a>&nbsp;barring scientists who receive EPA research funding from sitting on the board and suggesting how their research be applied, opening the door for more industry-friendly advisers. University of Minnesota professor Deborah Swackhamer, a former chair of the board and one of those recently let go, called the move “scientific censorship.”</font></p><p dir="ltr" style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The 17 new appointees named for the board include&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/pruitt-makes-epa-science-board-more-industry-friendly-n817276" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-line: none;">red-state regulators and industry representatives</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Robert Phalen, one of the only academics nominated, frequently spoke in opposition to air pollution-related regulations as a researcher with the University of California, Irvine, and in 2012 asserted, “<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/robert-phalen-epa-air-too-clean-700143" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Modern air is a little too clean for optimum health</a>."</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Former Vice President Al Gore, one of the leading voices fighting for action on climate change, met with President Trump during the transition to try to influence his thinking. “I haven’t had any conversations with [Trump] since his speech to withdraw from Paris," Gore told the Guardian last month. "I tried my best and thought he’d come to his senses but&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/10/al-gore-donald-trump-climate-change" target="_blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">I've been proven wrong</a>."</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/robert-phalen-epa-air-too-clean-700143">https://www.newsweek.com/robert-phalen-epa-air-too-clean-700143</a></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">wayback</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">INCOMING EPA ADVISER THINKS AIR IS TOO CLEAN</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">BY SUMMER MEZA ON 11/2/17 AT 5:30 PM</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">ROBERT PHALEN</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">EPA</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">AIR POLLUTION</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">One of the new White House appointees to a critical environmental panel once said that the air these days is just too clean to promote good health.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Robert Phalen, an air pollution researcher at the Irvine campus of the University of California, said in 2012 that children need to breathe irritants so that their bodies learn how to ward them off.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Modern air,” he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science, “is a little too clean for optimum health.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Phalen is one of 17 new appointees to the Environmental Protection Agency's Scientific Advisory Board, which helps develop environmental policy. Other nominees include scientists from the oil industry, a chemical industry trade association, and various universities and consulting groups.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Like Phalen, many are expected to argue for less regulation, an agenda that is backed by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">But Phalen's earlier comments drew renewed interest in his career as a researcher and an opponent of air pollution-related regulations. Much like President Donald Trump, Phalen prides himself on holding unpopular opinions, like his 2004 study that air pollution is not such a big deal.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“The relative risks associated with modern [particulate matter] are very small and confounded by many factors,” Phalen wrote. “Neither toxicology studies nor human clinical investigations have identified the components and/or characteristics of [particulate matter] that might be causing the health-effect associations.”</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Phalen also received heat after he defended his use of dogs to test the effects of air pollution on lung health on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in the 1980s—a controversial stance he maintained in several radio and television interviews.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>"My most important role in science is causing trouble and controversy," he said in the 2012 interview.</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Trump Administration has moved quickly to assert its control over the EPA's science team. Several members of the advisory panel were dismissed in May, part of the EPA's anti-regulatory agenda and shift to hearing more voices from business and industry, said some departed members of the panel. President Trump directed Pruitt to cut the EPA budget by 40 percent, and to roll back regulations on clean water protection and climate change prevention. The official EPA website also deleted pages that included climate change research.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">More recently, Pruitt announced that no scientist who received funding from the agency would be eligible to serve on the advisory board, a move that blocks hundreds of credible scientists from the panel. Pruitt said the move would prevent conflicts of interest, but critics say it's a false issue.</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">“They pretend that the industry people who are being offered up positions on the panel are somehow unbiased because they’re not getting money from EPA,” Donna Kenski of the Lake Michigan Air Directors Consortium in Illinois told the New York Times. Kenski was dismissed from a clean air advisory board earlier in the week, the Times reported.</font></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.aaas.org/blog/member-spotlight/robert-phalen-tests-our-modern-air">https://www.aaas.org/blog/member-spotlight/robert-phalen-tests-our-modern-air</a></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It&nbsp;was nearly 40 years ago when the mess with the oil embargo started the whole thing -- the fear of killer smog that led to the hiring of Robert Phalen to help California create policies to regulate the stuff in the air.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now that the policies are in place,&nbsp;Phalen,&nbsp;a founder and co-director of a major smog research lab,&nbsp;has one more thing to say about it: The air is just too clean. And he's pretty sure that it's not good for the children,&nbsp;whose lungs need a few irritants to learn how to ward them off.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Modern air," Phalen says,&nbsp;\is a little too clean for optimum health."</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>These days,&nbsp;as his Air Pollution Health Effects Laboratory is moving into areas like childhood asthma,&nbsp;a good part of Phalen's conversation deals with the unintended effects of well-intentioned policies.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Phalen darts around his office at the University of California at Irvine while he talks. He starts the conversation by running a modest tour of the dozens of binders that hold his publications,&nbsp;then he grabs a piece of chalk to outline the discussion on the chalkboard behind his chair. He never stays in the chair for long.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"There was a period of three months I didn't open my mail," he says.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That was the period after he was pulled out of a blissful postdoctoral post in which he was studying lung modeling for the Inhalation Toxicology Research Institute in New Mexico. His adviser's adviser -- or Yoda,&nbsp;as Phalen called him -- suggested that he take this new research post in California.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At that moment,&nbsp;the oil embargo had spurred a panic in California that went well beyond the gas lines. Policymakers were planning to move from oil to coal for energy. But there was a problem with that solution,&nbsp;based upon anecdotal evidence.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The authorities in California were troubled by an event known as The Great Smog of 1952. It happened in London during a cold winter,&nbsp;when people were burning more coal than usual. When a four-day inversion layer settled over the city,&nbsp;thousands of people died. Cows reportedly choked to death in the fields.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here's why the authorities were panicked: the London event occurred over a period of four days,&nbsp;and in Los Angeles,&nbsp;inversion covers the city for 340 days per year.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So Phalen settled down to work. He set up shop in an office that looks more like a construction trailer than a faculty building.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The lab's initial finding: There's no synergism between coal and ozone,&nbsp;which is plentiful in Southern California. In fact,&nbsp;the air chemistry triggered a lung defense that lessened the injury to the bronchial tree.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The state had been considering scrubbing the air,&nbsp;but policymakers scrapped the idea,&nbsp;based on the science. That decision,&nbsp;Phalen says,&nbsp;has saved $100 to $200 per month in utility bills for each household in California.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Other research led to the re-routing of traffic during the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles to lessen the impact of ozone on athletes,&nbsp;as well as the banning of lead gasoline.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Phalen has no qualms with those policies. But lately,&nbsp;he's been critical of the idea of setting standards on some emissions that might put truck drivers out of business. And he's <b>not convinced that the science justifies the fear-mongering over climate change.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the time since Phalen started his doctoral research in aerosol physics at the University of Rochester,&nbsp;he has made a dizzying tour of academic appointments,&nbsp;publications,&nbsp;professional memberships,&nbsp;and seats on federal advisory panels. He has received awards from the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission,&nbsp;the International Metallurgical Association,&nbsp;and the California Biomedical Research Association.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the panel that really stands out in his mind was put together by daytime talk show host Oprah Winfrey. In the late 1980s,&nbsp;Phalen agreed to go on her show with animal rights activists. The way he understands it,&nbsp;he was the only scientist who was willing to sit on the panel.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During that period,&nbsp;when Phalen was dealing with controversy over animal research,&nbsp;his perception of his role started to change.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"My most important role in science is causing trouble and controversy," he said.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 2.5em; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As he spoke,&nbsp;a burst of fresh ocean breeze blew into the office.</font></font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; line-height: 1.8em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"See," he says. "The air is too clean."</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 22px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 32px !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></font></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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