partic holo txt

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">not sure what's here, also bak?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><b style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">in 2 lots of bad border box box sizing code see bak txt</b></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">promote primary 1/18</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see brain neuro</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8/17 repurpose to particulate in general // Ozone? [rentatom premonition?]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1/18 morphing into sci supp 3; "trench warfare" on sci set off by Soon outing, maybe Happer, ie existential threat to hack and hackademics</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[and maybe tied to 3x whammy death match?]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">science transparency BS scam</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">also hit Lisa jackson on email acc't? (proto-hillary, but gop did routinely, Tillerson]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">new? 2x?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://junkscience.com/2012/04/epa-human-experiments-debunk-notion-of-killer-air-pollution-agency-hides-exculpatory-results/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://junkscience.com/2012/04/epa-human-experiments-debunk-notion-of-killer-air-pollution-agency-hides-exculpatory-results/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><header class="entry-header" style="box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 56.4688px;"><h1 class="entry-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; line-height: 1.2308;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA human experiments debunk notion of 'killer' air pollution: Agency hides exculpatory results</font></h1></header><div class="entry-content" style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 56.4688px 24.5469px; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has conducted air pollution experiments on live human subjects that discredit its claims that fine particulate matter kills people.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JunkScience.com obtained the explosive and heretofore undisclosed results through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and reveal them here for the first time.<span id="more-20092" style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" /></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Introduction.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last September, JunkScience.com&nbsp;<a href="https://junkscience.com/2011/09/15/epa-shows-us-a-body/" style="box-sizing: inherit; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">broke the news</a>&nbsp;that EPA researchers had reported in&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Environmental Health Perspectives</em>&nbsp;the case study of a woman who allegedly suffered atrial fibrillation after being exposed to concentrated airborne fine particulate matter (PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>) in an experimental setting.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After disposing of the EPA’s effort to link the woman’s atrial fibrillation with her exposure to PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>, we commented:</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 4px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: initial; border-left-color: rgba(51, 51, 51, 0.7); border-image: initial; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.8182em -1.0909em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.9091em; vertical-align: baseline; hyphens: none; quotes: none; line-height: 1.8182;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s also worth asking whether this is the only study subject that the EPA has studied. Are there others? What were their results? Do we only get to hear about the one result that could possibly be twisted to fit the EPA agenda?</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To answer this question, we filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the agency to see if we could get answers those questions.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Result and Analysis of the FOIA Request.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Below is a copy of the of the response we received from the EPA:</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://junkscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/epa-foia-pm-testing.jpeg" style="box-sizing: inherit; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;" /></font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://junkscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/epa-foia-pm-testing.jpeg" style="box-sizing: inherit; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[doc]&nbsp; This data sheet shows the following:</font></a></p><ul style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial;"><li style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://junkscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/epa-foia-pm-testing.jpeg" style="box-sizing: inherit; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA has been conducting air pollution effects tests on human subjects since at least January 2010.</font></a></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://junkscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/epa-foia-pm-testing.jpeg" style="box-sizing: inherit; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By the time the EPA researchers had published their September 2011 report in&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Environmental Health Perspectives</em>, they had conducted 41 such tests.</font></a></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://junkscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/epa-foia-pm-testing.jpeg" style="box-sizing: inherit; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Of the 41 human experiments, clinical effects were reported by the EPA in only two study subjects. Both of these are controversial. One is the case study reported in&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Environmental Health Perspectives</em>,&nbsp;</font></a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://junkscience.com/2011/09/15/epa-shows-us-a-body/" style="box-sizing: inherit; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">which has been previously debunked</a>. The other study subject flagged by the EPA researchers as experiencing a clinical effect (“a short episode of an elevated heart rate during exposure”), in fact, denied feeling any effects. This reported effect was most probably due to some pre-existing condition or other stressor given the low-level of PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>&nbsp;to which the study subject was exposed. Certainly the EPA has no reason to believe that was not the case or that the alleged heart rate jump was due to the PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>&nbsp;exposure.</font></li><li style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The other 39 study subjects were exposed to PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>&nbsp;levels up to 21 times greater (i.e, up to 750 μg/m<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; bottom: 1ex;">3</span>) than the EPA’s own permissible exposure limit for PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>&nbsp;on a 24-hour basis (i.e, 35 μg/m<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; bottom: 1ex;">3</span>). All reported exposures among the 39 study subjects were greater than the EPA’s 24-hour PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>&nbsp;standard. Seven study subjects were exposed to levels 10 times greater than the EPA’s 24-hour PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>&nbsp;standard.&nbsp;<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">No clinical effects were reported for any of these exposures.</span></font></li></ul><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Discussion.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There are at least three points to be made in light of this discovery.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1. The experimental results provide no evidence that ultra-high exposures to PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>&nbsp;kill.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA administrator Lisa Jackson testified to Congress last September that,</font></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: inherit; border-width: 0px 0px 0px 4px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: initial; border-left-style: solid; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: initial; border-left-color: rgba(51, 51, 51, 0.7); border-image: initial; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.8182em -1.0909em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0.9091em; vertical-align: baseline; hyphens: none; quotes: none; line-height: 1.8182;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">[Airborne] particulate matter causes premature death. It doesn’t make you sick. It’s directly causal to dying sooner than you should.</font></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These experiment results — produced by EPA’s own researchers — in no way support Jackson’s assertion.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2. The experimental results invalidate EPA’s cost-benefit analyses for its CSAPR and MATS rulemakings.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA justified the multibillion dollar costs of its Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) and its Mercury Air Toxics Standard (MATS) largely on the basis that the rules would prevent thousands of premature deaths from PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>, thereby purportedly providing tens of billions of dollars in monetized health benefits from “lives saved.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But ambient levels of PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>&nbsp;are typically far below the PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>&nbsp;levels to which subjects were exposed in this EPA experiment. We&nbsp;<a href="https://junkscience.com/2011/03/09/epa-saving-millions-and-making-trillions/" style="box-sizing: inherit; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">reported</a>&nbsp;earlier that the EPA’s 24-hour PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>&nbsp;of 35 μg/m<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; bottom: 1ex;">3</span>&nbsp;was exceeded only about 0.0096% of the time in the U.S. during 2009.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Moreover, the EPA experiment provides no evidence that PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>, even at very high exposures, causes any health effects, let alone premature death.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3. EPA and its researchers have heretofore failed to disclose to the public these significant results.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Finally, there is the matter of the ethics and perhaps even the legality of the conduct of the EPA and its researchers.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA’s experimental data on PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>&nbsp;clearly paint a quite different picture than that provided by the September 2011 report in&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Environmental Health Perspectives</em>&nbsp;and the agency’s recent PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>-related regulations (i.e., CSAPR and MATS).</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA researchers failed to mention the results from the other 40 human experiments in their&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Environmental Health Perspectives</em>&nbsp;report. At the very least, their failure to disclose their own contrary results raises serious ethical concerns.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As an agency, the EPA failed to disclose these stunning results in its CSAPR and MATS rulemakings. This ought to raise concerns about the legal bases for these rulemakings. More than simply ignoring its own negative data, the agency seems to have actually hid them from public view.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Conclusion.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to these EPA-conducted experiments, there is other compelling data that casts doubt on the EPA’s claim that PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>&nbsp;causes premature mortality, including&nbsp;<a href="https://junkscience.com/2011/08/19/air-pollution-scare-debunked/" style="box-sizing: inherit; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">historic air pollution data</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://junkscience.com/2012/01/05/shocker-chinese-air-pollution-debunks-u-s-epa-junk-science/" style="box-sizing: inherit; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">current Chinese experience with air quality</a>&nbsp;and the study “<a href="https://junkscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/enstrom2005.pdf" style="box-sizing: inherit; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Fine Particulate Air Pollution and Total Mortality Among Elderly Californians, 1973–2002</a>.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The results of JunkScience.com’s FOIA request add to this growing body of evidence.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Given the significant actual costs of the EPA’s PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>-related regulations on society, it is incumbent upon Congress to conduct a thorough investigation of the agency and its PM<span style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; height: 0px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: 0.5ex;">2.5</span>&nbsp;claims.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></p><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">related:&nbsp;<a href="https://junkscience.com/2020/07/more-appalling-lnt-fraud-from-the-national-academy-of-sciences/">https://junkscience.com/2020/07/more-appalling-lnt-fraud-from-the-national-academy-of-sciences/</a></font></p><header class="entry-header" style="box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px 56.4688px;"><h1 class="entry-title" style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; line-height: 1.2308;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More appalling LNT fraud from the National Academy of Sciences</font></h1></header><div class="entry-content" style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 56.4688px 24.5469px; vertical-align: baseline; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><p style="box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.6842em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In his new paper, Ed Calabrese reports that the ever-fraudulent National Academy of Sciences ignored data showing no genetic damage among the Japanese atomic bomb survivors because it would expose the limitations of extrapolating from animal data.[nyt 1956 headline]1st int'l cong on genetic copenhagen]]</font></p></div></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-cardiac-arrests-2644941669.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Researchers now say there is "no safe level" of air pollution exposure after a large-scale study found a correlation between exposure to fine particle matter, known as PM2.5, and cardiac arrests, according to the The Sydney Morning Herald.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The researchers found that exposure to PM2.5 that even fell below global standards was hazardous, suggesting that tighter regulations and cleaner energy is required, according to the study, which was published in the journal Lancet Planetary Health.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scientists from the University of Sydney led the study, which analyzed air quality in Japan against 249,372 cases of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. They concluded that even low-level exposure was associated with an increased risk of cardiac arrest for people over 65, as The Sydney Morning Herald reported.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The researchers noticed that the risk of cardiac arrest grew by up to 4 percent for every increase of 10 units in the PM2.5 levels.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Our study supports recent evidence that there is no safe level of air pollution — finding an increased risk of cardiac arrest despite air quality generally meeting the standards," said report author professor Kazuaki Negishi from the University of Sydney School of Medicine, as The Canberra Times reported.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Negishi pointed out that previous research into air pollution and acute cardiac events had been inconsistent, particularly at PM2.5 levels that met the World Health Organization guidelines. However, the large scale of this study meant that past inconsistencies could be addressed.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest is a major medical emergency – with less than one in 10 people worldwide surviving these events – and there has been increasing evidence of an association with the more acute air pollution, or fine particulate matter such as PM2.5," said Negishi in a University of Sydney statement. "We analyzed almost a quarter of a million cases of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests and found a clear link with acute air pollution levels."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The findings are troubling for Australia, which has seen its usually pristine air plummet in quality due to the recent bushfires. In the study, more than 90 per cent of out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occurred at levels below the Australian standard of 25 micrograms per cubic meter. Put another way, the air quality levels ranked as "fair," "good" or "very good" under Australian standards, as the The Sydney Morning Herald reported. The U.S. and Japanese standard is less strict at 35 micrograms per cubic meter.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Australia had a particularly awful year, with air quality in Canberra ranking as the worst in the world on Dec. 31. Sydney had 81 days of hazardous, very poor or poor air quality in 2019, which was more days of bad air than the last decade combined, according to The Sydney Morning Herald.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The researchers expect the worsening air quality will lead to more heart attack fatalities in Australia, especially among older people.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Given the fact that there is a tendency towards worsening air pollution – from increasing numbers of cars as well as disasters such as bushfires – the impacts on cardiovascular events, in addition to respiratory diseases and lung cancer – must be taken into account in health care responses," said Negishi in a university statement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unfortunately, the researchers did not identify a threshold that is safe for exposure to PM2.5. Instead, Negishi said that existing standards should be reevaluated.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"It might not be a good idea to continue to seek [a new] threshold, but try to continuously improve our air quality. If a threshold exists, it should be very, very close to zero," Negishi said, as The Sydney Morning Herald reported.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1119</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/10/24/20927103/air-pollution-study-deaths-elderly-obama-trump</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rising levels of tiny particle air pollution across the US killed an additional 9,700 people in 2018 than in 2016, say researchers in a newly published study. Their analysis points to three likely reasons why, reports Vox: expanding economic activity, wildfires, and lax enforcement of clean air regulations going back to 2013.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EW 919</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-childrens-mental-health-2640650546.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Climate change is making air pollution worse and is exacerbating smog-related health risks such as heart and lung diseases, pregnancy complications and development issues. Now, a study by the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center has identified another health risk associated with rising air pollution: childhood psychiatric issues.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the study, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, short-term spikes in ambient air pollution are linked with an increase in hospital visits for childhood psychiatric issues. Also, children in low-income neighborhoods with poor access to healthcare appeared to be more susceptible to the mental health effects of air pollution.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CNN reported that while previous research has shown an association between particulate matter pollution in the air and adult mental health issues, this is the first time researchers have looked into its effect on children.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the five-year study, researchers focused on a very small type of particulate matter called PM 2.5 — fossil fuel-powered vehicles and power plants, cooking, dust and brush fires are all sources — can be easily inhaled and end up in organs and the bloodstream, causing inflammation in the lungs or brain, and, in the long term, may trigger cancer and heart attacks.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The researchers looked at more than 13,000 visits by children to Cincinnati Children's emergency psychiatric unit and compared it with data on the concentrations of PM 2.5 where they live. Results showed that spikes in PM 2.5 concentration were associated with increased childhood psychiatric visits one or two days later for adjustment disorder, anxiety and suicidal thoughts, while same-day visits were usually related to schizophrenia.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All daily exposures to PM 2.5 in the study were below levels set in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's National Ambient Air Quality Standards, researchers said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These spikes in air pollution increased the risk of hospitalization for suicidal thoughts by 44 percent overall, the Daily Mail reported, but the risk for children from disadvantaged areas was almost double that. These children were also 39 percent more likely to need treatment for anxiety.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The researchers noted that the study was observational and more research would be needed to rule out other causes, Newsweek reported.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"More research is needed to confirm these findings, but it could lead to new prevention strategies for children experiencing symptoms related to a psychiatric disorder," lead author Cole Brokamp said in a press release. "The fact that children living in high poverty neighborhoods experienced greater health effects of air pollution could mean that pollutant and neighborhood stressors can have synergistic effects on psychiatric symptom severity and frequency."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While this study only looked at PM 2.5, it builds on other recent research by Cincinnati Children's demonstrating that exposure to air pollution in general during childhood may contribute to a host of mental health issues at an early age.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In May, researchers at the Cincinnati Children's published a study in Environmental Research showing a link between increased exposure to high traffic related air pollution (TRAP) and generalized anxiety. Another study published in June found that exposure to TRAP shortly in early childhood was linked with symptoms of anxiety and depression in 12-year-olds.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">larry bell forbes</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA Charged With Lethal Experiments On Hundreds Of ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.forbes.com › sites › larrybell › 2012/11/13 › epa-charged-wit...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Nov 13, 2012 - The American Tradition Institute (ATI) which filed the law suit against EPA ... The litigation was filed on behalf of lead plaintiff Landon Huffman, an ATI ... Another ATI plaintiff, David Schnare, formerly served for 33 years as an ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/11/13/epa-charged-with-lethal-experiments-on-hundreds-of-unsuspecting-subjects/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">a suit filed in federal court charges the Environmental Protection Agency with conducting illegal and potentially lethal experiments on hundreds of financially needy people who were paid $12/hour without even informing them of risks. Based upon thousands of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, procedures undertaken since 2004 and continuing through the Obama administration exposed subjects at the University of North Carolina’s School of Medicine to very high levels of toxic air pollutants. Many of these subjects were already health-impaired, suffering from asthma, metabolic syndrome, and aging (up to 75 years old).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the pollutants was a fine particulate substance known as PM2.5, a major component of diesel exhaust which EPA had determined to be unsafe for inhalation at any level, particularly for health-impaired and elderly populations. The administration’s own Clean Air Scientific Advisory Council chairman, Jon Samet, stated that in a 2011 commentary published in the New England Journal of Medicine. House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) reiterated EPA’s position on this in a February 2012 letter to EPA air chief, Gina McCarthy.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA has strictly regulated PM2.5 under its Clean Air Act since 1997.&nbsp; Those air quality standards costing multi-billions of dollars are being dramatically tightened. Two of the biggest new ones under its recently D.C. District Circuit Appeals Court-rejected Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and the Mercury Air Toxics Standard, are heavily premised upon condemnation of PM2.5 as a killer. As EPA Administrator Jackson testified in Congress in September 2011, “…particulate [PM2.5] matter causes premature death. It doesn’t make you sick. It’s directly causal to dying sooner than you should.” She added, “If we could reduce particulate matter to levels that are healthy we would have an identical impact to finding a cure for cancer.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Today In: Opinion</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So if this is the case, why did EPA fail to warn their test subjects that the substances they would be exposed to in high doses were so dangerous? While the administration has repeatedly told Congress and the public that PM2.5 can kill within hours of exposure, they only told them, for example, that “You may experience some minor degree of airway irritation, cough or shortness of breath or wheezing. These symptoms typically disappear two to four hours after exposure, but may last longer for particularly sensitive people.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One such “sensitive person” is an obese woman with a history of heart disease. She had to be rushed to a hospital for an overnight stay after suffering a cardiac arrhythmia during an experiment. And although EPA attributed her heart problem to PM2.5 in a published report, no one ever bothered to warn subsequent subjects of cardiac arrhythmia risk.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The American Tradition Institute (ATI) which filed the law suit against EPA and its administrator asserts that such practices are not only illegal, but run afoul of virtually every rule of ethical standard established since World War II and the Tuskegee syphilis experiments to protect human study subjects from rogue scientific research. The egregious Tuskegee experiments were influential in prompting Congress to pass the National Research Act of 1974 creating a commission to develop principles for protection of human subjects in scientific experimentation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ATI believes that EPA has both civil and criminal liability. The litigation was filed on behalf of lead plaintiff Landon Huffman, an ATI member who participated in the EPA’s human experimentation after receiving a consent form that did not explain that he would be exposed to something that the agency claims to be lethal. He was also never informed that such human experimentation was only supposed to be conducted in a manner that would potentially and directly benefit the study subjects.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">To the contrary,&nbsp; Mr. Landon maintains that he was led to believe the experiment would help people with asthma, a condition he suffers…not told that the pollution that was forced into his lungs could actually cause an asthma attack. Nor was he ever given anything by EPA that would possibly relieve his asthma.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since learning that EPA considers that the gases he was exposed to are lethal, Landon reports being distraught and consumed with emotional distress. This includes a fear of dying and future inability to support his wife and family. He is also distressed that other participants may suffer in the same way.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ATI member and plaintiff Steven Milloy recalls horrific family memories of his uncle, a prisoner&nbsp; at the WWII German Mauthausen concentration camp where grisly pseudoscientific medical experiments were conducted. There, upon threat of death, he was forced to identify fellow prisoners who were too ill to work, knowing they would subsequently be executed.&nbsp; Milloy is a well-known author and publisher of JunkScience.com.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another ATI plaintiff, David Schnare, formerly served for 33 years as an EPA scientist, policy analyst and enforcement lawyer. He left the agency after realizing that it had abandoned even-handed science-based approaches of earlier times. David is named in honor of family member David Steiner, a prisoner at the Buchenwald concentration camp who died on May 3, 1945, just 21 days after liberation. Some 729 inmates were subjects of barbaric medical experiments. Of those victims, 154 died.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Guided by painful lessons of such tragedies, it is difficult to imagine any possible justification for the EPA’s experiment program on plausible ethical or legal grounds. Section&nbsp; 42 of U.S. Code 3515b addressing prohibition on funding certain experiments involving human participants states that: “…[no]funds appropriated by this Act ….shall be used to pay for any research program, project, or course which is of an experimental nature, or any other activity involving human participants, which is determined by the Secretary or a court of competent jurisdiction to present a danger to the physical, mental, or emotional well-being of a participant or subject of such program, project, or course, without the written, informed consent of each participant or subject.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since three of the EPA researchers connected with its human experiments are North Carolina-licensed physicians, that state’s medical board is now investigating their participation. The University of North Carolina which provided the EPA with a required institutional review board (IRB) for approving the experiments is also conducting an inquiry. And while the Obama-appointed Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues has refused multiple requests to get involved in the issue, Senator Inhofe, the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, is now calling for investigatory hearings on the matter.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a letter to committee chair Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) Inhofe wrote: “It is extremely disturbing that EPA may have conducted illegal human experiments, exposing people with conditions such as asthma and metabolic syndrome to concentrated high levels of substances like fine particulate matter and diesel exhaust.” He then charged that: “EPA has repeatedly said that these substances can cause cancer and lead to death, so if these allegations of human experiments are true, it just validates the problem that the Obama-EPA’s mission is not about public health.”[ENSTROM WORDS/TALKING PTS? E&E BS?]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So there it is. Either such devastating charges are warranted, or the agency’s assessments of toxic dangers presented by diesel PM2.5 emissions are greatly exaggerated and unsupportable. In the second event, EPA is at least guilty of gross scientific incompetence, public misrepresentation of facts, and costly abuse of regulatory authority. Either way, they must be required to clear the air and clean up their act.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Larry Bell</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I am a professor and endowed professor at the University of Houston where I founded and direct the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and head the grad... Read More</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Comparative Analysis of the College-Choice Factors of NCAA Football Student-Athletes at a Southeastern University Public Deposited</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Downloadable ContentDownload PDF</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last Modified</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">March 19, 2019</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Creator</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Huffman, Landon T.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Exercise and Sport Science</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">omg</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15032019/air-pollution-trump-epa-science-advisers-health-risk-fossil-fuel-chemical-tobacco-industry</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For two years, the Trump administration has been planting seeds of change in the Environmental Protection Agency—installing allies of regulated industries onto its elite panels of science advisers. That effort now has borne fruit in dramatic fashion.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA's new science advisers, sweeping aside decades of research on the grave health risks of fine particle air pollution, have launched a drive to force the agency to give greater weight to a handful of contrarian studies that dispute the harmful effects of soot.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Particulate matter is the pollution caused by combustion, a mixture of solid and liquid droplets that forms in the burning of fossil fuels or wood. The health risks of particulate matter have been an underpinning of the EPA's cost-benefit analysis of a number of air pollution regulations, including those meant to address climate change, like the Obama administration's Clean Air Act.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The science is well-established—the World Health Organization estimates that there are 4.2 million premature deaths a year due to fine particle pollution, making it one of the leading environmental health risks globally. But allies of the fossil fuel industry have vigorously disputed the validity of fine particle pollution studies since they first emerged in the 1990s.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Significantly, the health damages from particle and other pollution coming from the combustion of fossil fuels have also been used by the EPA to justify controls on carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. Controlling climate change has important co-benefits, the agency has reasoned. The Trump administration and its industry allies oppose this logic.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More Weight for 'Discordant' Claims?&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The latest scientific dispute centers around the EPA's draft assessment of the science on particulate matter (PM), a comprehensive review that the agency is required by law to conduct every few years to update the state of the science on several key pollutants. EPA released its draft review last fall.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It affirmed the agency's previous findings that the science points consistently and overwhelmingly to a "causal relationship" between PM pollution and premature deaths. The assessment concludes the greatest risk is due to particles less than 2.5 microns in width, and that PM2.5 is associated with a range of cardiovascular and respiratory effects.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For the first time, the EPA concluded that the evidence was strong enough to show a "likely" causal relationship between long-term PM2.5 exposure and cancer, as well as nervous system effects. The EPA concluded, as it has in the past, that there is evidence of health risks even at extremely low levels of PM exposure.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Now, in a harshly worded draft review, the Trump administration's science advisors are blasting those findings as based on "unverifiable opinions" and lacking in scientific support.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The advisers are members of a seven-member panel called the Clean Air Science Advisory Committee. Although it is clear the members are not unified in their critique—individual members attached separate letters—the document calls for "substantial revisions" to EPA's assessment of PM, including giving more weight to what it called the "discordant" evidence among the 2,800 published studies cited in the EPA's 1,900-page science assessment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Substantial discordant and conflicting evidence remains ignored or unresolved," the Trump administration-appointed CASAC wrote, "leading to repeated assertions that the literature shows consistent and coherent positive associations when in fact it shows a mixture of positive and negative results."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When asked for comment on the critique, a spokesperson for the EPA said by email: "We appreciate the work of the CASAC and we will review the report."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Who Are New Committee Members Listening To?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The CASAC, now chaired by Louis Anthony "Tony" Cox, Jr., a Denver-based consultant</b>, offers a few examples of the studies it wants to see the EPA give more weight to. Among them are studies that are authored, in fact, b<b>y Cox himself—whose clients have included the American Petroleum Institute, the tobacco industry and the chemical industry.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Other studies mentioned by the CASAC are by<b> S. Stanley Young</b>, a former pharmaceutical industry statistician based in Raleigh, N.C., who is an adviser to the Heartland Institute, a conservative think tank that has led a years-long campaign to discredit climate science. Young is now also an EPA science adviser.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The CASAC also pointed to the work of James Enstrom, a Los Angeles epidemiologist who for years has questioned the health risks of particulate matter. A former tobacco industry researcher, Enstrom was a plaintiff in a 2016 lawsuit brought by the fossil fuel industry-funded Energy and Environment Legal Institute that challenged the makeup of the previous CASAC.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many of the environmental scientists who were appointed to EPA's advisory panels had received funding from EPA at some point in their careers, which the Enstrom suit said was a conflict of interest. In 2017, Trump's first EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, made the same argument when he replaced scientific experts from the existing science advisory boards with new appointees—including a number of industry allies and consultants, like Cox and Young.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">'CASAC Itself Lacks Necessary Expertise'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One scientist who was among those removed from the CASAC last year, H. Christopher Frey, an environmental engineer at the University of North Carolina, said the harsh science critique from the Trump administration-appointed committee comes amid "numerous major changes to the [air quality standards] review process that collectively undermine its quality, integrity and credibility."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"Most astonishing is the arrogant and insulting tone of this letter toward EPA scientific staff," Frey, a former chairman of the CASAC, </span>said in an email to InsideClimate News. Frey dismissed as "patently absurd" the document's assertion that the EPA's approach on particulate matter was unscientific. "The statement is ironic given that the CASAC itself lacks necessary expertise," he said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In fact, the CASAC recommended that it be given access to additional technical expertise in order to complete its review of EPA science on particulate matter. Two members of the CASAC called for the EPA to reconstitute a 20-member special review panel on particulate matter that EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler disbanded in October, just prior to the start of the peer review. That panel included experts in the science of particulate matter and health effects—expertise that is now missing on the CASAC. Although much of the science on the health risks of particulate matter is from large human studies, there are no epidemiologists on the current CASAC.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In one striking passage of its draft peer review, the CASAC said it is unable to reach consensus on the link between particulate matter and mortality—the "causality determination of mortality from PM2.5 exposure." Some members "are of the opinion that, although uncertainties remain, the evidence supporting the causal relationship between PM2.5 exposure and mortality is robust, diverse, and convincing," the document said. But other committee members think EPA should provide a better justification for its determination that there is a causal relationship between PM exposure and premature death.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Daniel Greenbaum, president of the Boston-based Health Effects Institute (HEI), a research institute that has conducted major studies on air pollution, said that he was surprised at that passage.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Given that there is more than a decade worth of work now looking at the epidemiology, the toxicology, and a number of other things to see whether or not PM can contribute to mortality, there's pretty robust literature that says that," said Greenbaum. HEI has offered its own critiques of some aspects of EPA's assessment—for example, it does not agree with EPA's conclusion on nervous system effects. But HEI does not dispute EPA's fundamental conclusion on mortality risk. "By most standards, people would say that the evidence has strengthened over the last 20 years," Greenbaum said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Greenbaum noted that the committee's review document is only a draft. The CASAC has set a conference call for March 28 to discuss the document and the next steps before submitting its final recommendations to Wheeler.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://thinkprogress.org/experts-warn-trumps-epa-policies-mean-more-cases-of-autism-41360fe83430/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Experts warn Trump’s EPA policies mean more cases of autism</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Small particles of air pollution can travel directly from the nose to the brain, causing damage.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">JOE ROMM</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MAR 1, 2019, 10:37 AM</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some of the country’s leading experts on healthy brain development have come together to warn the public that President Donald Trump’s efforts to roll back science-based air pollution standards will come at a high cost to our children.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Published in the American Journal of Public Health this week, these scientists and doctors cite “mounting evidence linking air pollution to neurodevelopmental disorders in children, like autism, ADHD, memory deficiencies and reduced IQ.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The article makes several specific recommendations for how the government can protect children, one of the most important being to “strengthen and enforce federal fuel efficiency standards.” As the article explains, “Increasing evidence links prenatal exposure to traffic-related air pollutants and PM2.5 [tiny particulates] to autism spectrum disorder.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But that’s in sharp contrast to the work being done by Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has started the process of weakening existing standards.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;The Trump administration released a proposal to roll back Obama-era federal fuel economy standards and revoke California’s ability to set its own fuel mileage and emissions standards. CREDIT: David McNew/Getty Images]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Widespread disapproval greets Trump’s rollback of auto emissions and fuel efficiency standards</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Co-author Dr. Irva Hertz-Picciotto, director of the University of California Davis Environmental Health Sciences Center funded by the National Institutes of Health, told ThinkProgress that starting with the Clean Air Act of 1970 — and for decades after — the EPA used the growing scientific evidence connecting serious health effects to air pollution as the basis for stronger and stronger air pollution rules.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“But under our current administration, many of these rules are being rolled back,” she warned. This is despite the overwhelming evidence, she said, that “energy produced from fossil fuels has really caused a lot of premature death and illness in people for decades.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She explained that the reason she and her colleagues came together to write this article is that “we now have yet another reason besides the cardiovascular and respiratory impacts” to tighten air pollution standards: the impact on children’s brains.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hertz-Picciotto, who is also director of the Program in Environmental Epidemiology of Autism at UC Davis, has been researching the environmental causes of autism for many years. She points out that there is increasing evidence that the very small particles (PM2.5) associated with fossil fuel combustion can “travel directly from nasal passages to the brain.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PM2.5 is particulate matter (PM) smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter. In comparison, a strand of human hair is more than 20 times wider than PM2.5.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scientist have previously noted that the link between PM2.5 exposure and Alzheimer’s may also be due to the fact that tiny air pollution particles can travel from the nose to the brain.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Researchers have found that particulates from coal plants (like this one in Kansas) and vehicles increase the risk of dementia. Credit: AP Photo/Charlie Riedel</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trump’s EPA policies risk more Alzheimer’s cases, doctors warn</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hertz-Picciotto explained that cutting carbon pollution is a double win because not only does it reduce the harmful particles, it also reduces the risk of global warming — which comes with a slew of other impacts that endanger children’s brains.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of wildfires, which cause short-term, high-level exposure to combustion-related pollutants,” the study notes. Also, simply exposing pregnant women to higher and higher temperatures “increases risk for premature delivery, itself a risk factor for developmental delay.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since even low levels of the smallest particles are dangerous to humans, Trump’s plans to roll back EPA air pollution rules are even more cruel and immoral than they first appeared.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the authors conclude, if their recommendations to tighten air pollution standards are taken seriously, “fewer children will face the challenge of living with neurodevelopmental disorders and more people will be able to fully participate in society across their life span.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.ecowatch.com/epa-science-panel-air-pollution-2611852549.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA Cuts Science Panel That Reviewed Deadly Air Pollutants</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It seems that every day scientists discover more about the dangers of air pollution. It is well known that it causes heart and lung disease, but studies this year have linked it to dementia and found soot particles in placenta. Most recently, a study published in the Journal of Investigative Medicine found a connection between particulate matter and mouth cancer risk.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) doesn't seem to be paying attention. The agency, under the direction of former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, is moving to disband a panel of scientists that advise the agency on setting safe levels of particulate matter pollution, The New York Times reported Wednesday.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An EPA official confirmed to The New York Times that the 20-person Particulate Matter Review Panel, which advises the agency on setting safe levels of the microscopic pollutants, was not listed as continuing to meet next year.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"To me this is part of a pattern," Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) Research Director Gretchen Goldman told The New York Times. "We're seeing EPA trying to cut science out of the process."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Goldman cited recent agency decisions such as nixing the senior science advisor position and issuing a proposal that would limit the types of scientific studies the EPA can use to make decisions. In the case of particulate matter, this could have deadly consequences, as Goldman explained in a Twitter thread about the decision.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The end result here could be a weaker particulate standard, not based on science and not protective of public health. PM is responsible for thousands of premature deaths annually in the US. A weaker standard does not help," she wrote.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a separate blog post, Goldman explained more of the nuances of the EPA's most recent polluter-friendly move.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The U.S. has succeeded in reducing deadly particulate matter pollution because of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), which are reviewed every five years with the help of scientific experts. The teams working on those reviews include the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) and the separate pollution review panels.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Goldman explained why both are essential:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These review panels are comprised of experts on the pollutant under review specifically, allowing the agency to benefit from subject matter expertise. For example, CASAC will include folks with air pollution modeling or monitoring expertise and epidemiologists, but the PM review panel might include experts on the toxicology of particulates or an expert on particulate measurement error. This is especially important because CASAC is small (seven people). No matter how expert, it would not be possible for this group to have working expertise of all elements of the relationship between a pollutant and health AND have that knowledge for all six criteria pollutants under CASAC's purview. As a result, EPA decisions on pollution standards can benefit from scientific expertise on all facets of the science on particulates and health.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But in a Wednesday news release, Wheeler announced that he would add five people to CASAC and task that group with revising particulate matter and ozone standards, with no mention of the separate advisory panels.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Goldman speculated that the Trump administration was attempting to fast-track the air quality standards review process in order to set new standards before the end of its time in office. That would be a boon to polluting industries at the expense of America's lungs.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Why Honeycutt Is Such an Alarming Choice for EPA's Science ... ›</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Incoming EPA Adviser Thinks Air Is Too Clean ›</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Science Panel Says EPA Stiffed Its Request for Air Pollution Data ... ›</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.ecowatch.com/air-pollution-placentas-pregnancy-2605967194.html</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Air Pollution Particles Discovered in Placentas</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Researchers have found the first evidence that soot from polluted air can travel from a pregnant woman's lungs and reach the placenta via the bloodstream, according to a press release from Queen Mary University of London.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The study examined the placentas of five women living in London after they gave birth. The women were all non-smokers, had uncomplicated pregnancies and delivered healthy babies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For the study, the research team examined 3,500 macrophage cells from the five placentas. Macrophages, which are white blood cells that reside all over the human body, protect the immune system as they work to engulf harmful particles, such as bacteria and pollution particles.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Using a high-powered microscope, the researchers detected 72 small, black particles among the placental macrophages, which the scientists believe are tiny carbon particles typically created by burning fossil fuels, the press release noted.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We can't think of anything else they could be. It is very evident to us they are black sooty particles,"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060095511</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">zc</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When EPA announced yesterday it was reconsidering a power plant rule with which major utilities already comply, many saw it as a largely fruitless exercise.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But struggling coal-fired power plants saw it as a lifeline.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whatever damage came from the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards, or MATS, is already done in the eyes of big players like Duke Energy Corp. and American Electric Power Co. They've installed the technology to reduce pollution that MATS required. Aging reactors that shut down rather than add the costly kit aren't coming back(Greenwire, Aug. 29).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But a clutch of coal-saturated utilities see an avenue for avoiding "Armageddon," according to an industry attorney.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Those utilities want to move regulations for mercury and other pollution out of one section of the Clean Air Act and into another — the one EPA is using to set limits for carbon — to avoid more stringent future regulations that could signal a death knell for the nation's most coal-intensive reactors.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Legally what he's suggesting is bonkers, but it's fascinating," John Walke, director of the federal clean air, climate and clean energy program with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said of the case being raised by those attorneys.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At issue is what's known as the "Risk and Technology Review" under the Clean Air Act's Section 112, a provision that requires a check-in eight years after developing pollution standards to see whether initial controls have done enough to eliminate or reduce the risks of cancer, heart and lung ailments, and other public health problems. There's no negotiating; that review comes in 2020 for power plants so long as the MATS rule developed in 2012 remains in effect.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What concerns coal-saturated power operators is that environmental groups will use the findings from those reviews to press for stricter standards on a host of pollutants. That would include particulate matter — tiny soot particles — the reduction of which generated a significant amount of benefits for the Obama administration's now-defunct climate rule, the Clean Power Plan.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Officially, those utilities are arguing that re-evaluating MATS and placing it under Section 111(d) — which the Trump and Obama administrations used to impose carbon emissions rules for power plants — would satisfy the "112 exclusion."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That argument claims EPA cannot regulate power plants under Section 111(d) if those facilities also face rules under Section 112. They see EPA's move yesterday to reassess whether the Obama administration's determination to regulate mercury and air toxins was "appropriate and necessary" as the starting point for shifting the program from 112 to 111(d).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The EPA has an excellent opportunity now to streamline its regulatory approach under Section 111(d), encourage the states to play a meaningful role in the regulatory process, and allow the kind of flexibility and sensitivity to local needs that the Clean Air Act was intended to promote," Andrew Grossman, an attorney with BakerHostetler, said in an email.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unofficially, the situation is a little different.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"It's about what the environmental groups will use those reviews to do and what D.C. Circuit Court judges would do to EPA," the utility attorney said. "The first war on coal was about [sulfur dioxide]. And the second will be on particulate matter."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In fact, many utilities want EPA to keep the MATS rule. Because most have complied with the rules — chalked up as the costliest in EPA history — there's little upside to ditching it now.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Trade groups Edison Electric Institute and National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, along with labor unions, wrote a July letter urging EPA air chief Bill Wehrum to maintain the rule and to "complete the statutorily mandated Residual Risk and Technology Review (RTR) for power plants as expeditiously as possible" (Greenwire, July 11).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The developing strategy from those looking to squash the 112 program exposes a subtle division among utility industry lawyers, Walke said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some attorneys who represent utilities that have spent billions of dollars complying worry that undoing and rewriting the MATS rule would take too long. That means it could park the Risk and Technology Review squarely within a Democratic administration rather than a more sympathetic Trump EPA.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"That July letter strongly promotes moving straight to that process, to the residual risk process," Walke said of the letter from utility organizations and labor unions. "They want the Trump EPA to complete it. They want Bill Wehrum to say, 'We don't want you to do any more.'"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But industry attorneys on the other side of that argument worry about the effects the reviews would have on power plants that use only electrostatic precipitators to remove pollutants rather than scrubbers, the latter of which Walke said are more effective. Those are the types of facilities that could come under greater pressure from actions resulting from that review.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The issue going forward is there is a future round of standards," the utility attorney said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Proponents of that legal opinion argue that the section the Obama administration used for MATS was always imperfect for power plants. That part of the Clean Air Act was intended for a national program, but power plants use different types of coal for various reasons and compete regionally, not across the whole country.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"This claim is valid. In general, coal plants that burn eastern coal had a much more expensive compliance pathway than coal plants that burn [Powder River Basin] coal," Brian Potts, an environmental and energy attorney and partner at Perkins Coie, said in an email, though he wasn't commenting on the overarching legal play.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Still, doing what those utilities envision — shifting the regulatory program from Section 112 to Section 111(d) — is no easy task, Potts said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That, essentially, is what EPA tried to do under President George W. Bush, Potts said. Courts struck down the Clean Air Mercury Rule because they said the agency lacked authority to simply delist power plants from Section 112 and replace it with a cap-and-trade program.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Plants are already complying with the current standards now. Certainly if the current standards are made more stringent, that could impact some plants," Potts said. "But it seems a bit odd to me to preemptively revoke standards in order to avoid the possibility of a future administration making them more stringent — especially when the current administration is in its first term."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://columbiaclimatelaw.com/silencing-science-tracker/epas-use-of-scientific-studies-restricted/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA’s Use of Scientific Studies Restricted</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Date: March 19th, 2018</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Agency: US EPA</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Explanation: Bias and Misrepresentation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scientist: Other</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On March 19, 2018, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt announced a new “science transparency policy” that restricts the scientific studies used in agency rulemakings. Under the policy, EPA will no longer use studies incorporating non-public scientific data in rulemakings, as has been its longstanding practice.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Administrator Pruitt has argued that the new policy is needed to prevent the use of so-called “secret science” that cannot be tested by third parties. In an interview published in The Daily Caller, Administrator Pruitt said:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If we use a third party to engage in scientific review or inquiry, and that’s the basis of rulemaking, you and every American citizen across the country deserve to know what’s the data, what’s the methodology that was used to reach that conclusion that was the underpinning of what — rules that were adopted by this agency.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Pruitt, if a study’s data and methodology are not published, “it’s not transparent. It’s not [able to be] objectively measured, and that’s important.” Others, however, point out that the studies undergo peer review. In an op-ed published in The New York Times, former top EPA officials Gina McCarthy and Janet McCabe wrote:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Peer review ensures that the analytic methodologies underlying studies funded by the agency are sound . . .</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Administrator Pruitt] and some conservative members of Congress are setting up a nonexistent problem in order to prevent the E.P.A. from using the best available science. These studies adhere to all professional standards and meet every expectation of the scientific community in terms of peer review and scientific integrity.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">McCarthy and McCabe also emphasized that the new policy would restrict the studies able to be used in EPA rulemakings. They wrote:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Some of [the] studies [at issue], particularly those that determine the effects of exposure to chemicals and pollution on health, rely on medical records that by law are confidential because of patient privacy policies. These studies summarize the analysis of raw data and draw conclusions based on that analysis. Other government agencies also use studies like these to develop policy and regulations, and to buttress and defend rules against legal challenges. They are, in fact, essential to making sound public policy . . .</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;For instance, foundational epidemiological research into the effects of air pollution on health by scientists at Harvard and the American Cancer Society established a clear connection between exposure to fine particles and increased mortality. This research led to further studies that supported the development of air quality standards and rules requiring industry to reduce pollution, improving health and reducing costs for millions of Americans.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet, because the personal health data associated with individuals participating in the studies were obtained with guarantees of confidentiality, Mr. Pruitt apparently would have argued for those studies to be tossed out had he been at the helm then.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Update: On April 24, 2018, Administrator Pruitt signed a proposed rule intended to implement the “science transparency policy.” The rule provides that, “when EPA develops regulations, including regulations for which the public is likely to bear the cost of compliance, with regard to those scientific studies that are pivotal to the action being taken, EPA should ensure that the data underlying those are publicly available in a manner sufficient for independent validation.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On May 17, 2018, E&E News reported that the science transparency policy “closely resemble[s]” proposals put forward by industry groups, including the National Association of Manufactures and American Petroleum Institute.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">def fund:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The federal government has now tried to restrict science 155 times — about once every four days — since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, according to the Silencing Science Tracker we maintain with the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “It’s a pretty constant drumbeat,” Lauren Kurtz, our executive director, told Earther.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More than three-quarters of the Tracker entries involve attempts to silence climate science, with the highest number of attacks occurring at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the most troubling is the "science transparency" rule proposed by the EPA, which would prohibit the agency from taking many scientific studies into consideration when making policy decisions. The EPA received nearly half a million comments on this proposal; among them are comments we submitted explaining our opposition to the rule.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While climate scientists often face harassment, for women in climate science there is frequently another layer of hostility. Lauren Kurtz recently spoke with E&E News about how women in this field are attacked based on their gender.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">enstrom&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/6/as_scott_pruitt_resigns_former_epa</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...we’re joined in Washington, D.C., by two former EPA officials who have left the agency under Pruitt. Mustafa Ali is the former head of the environmental justice program at the Environmental Protection Agency. And Chris Zarba is a career EPA employee, who retired in February after leading the agency’s Scientific Advisory Boards. Also joining us from Washington, D.C., is Kristin Mink, the mother and teacher in Washington, D.C., who confronted Pruitt earlier this week at a restaurant, calling on him to resign. Also with us, Emily Atkin, staff writer at The New Republic whose latest piece is headlined “Scott Pruitt Is Gone. His Assault on the Environment Continues.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Let’s begin with Mustafa Ali. You were one of the first to quit the EPA when Scott Pruitt became its chief. Talk about your response. What do you think brought him down?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MUSTAFA ALI: Well, I think it was a number of things, Amy, that brought him down. Folks should definitely be focused on the policy and how the choices that were being made were placing our country and our citizens in much greater harm. So I think that that’s the first place that we should always start, because that actually affects public health and the environment. You know, the scandals that he was a part of also were just the extra added incentive for him to need to leave. I think that he actually didn’t understand what the job description was, which was to protect public health and the environment. So, if he couldn’t do that, he should have never accepted the position.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AMY GOODMAN: And what was the spark for you to leave, Mustafa Ali? And when was that? It was almost at the very beginning of his term.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MUSTAFA ALI: Yeah, I left on March the 8th of 2017. And, you know, I took a look at some of the decisions that were being proposed and actions that were being moved forward on. And I knew that the vulnerable communities that I had worked for—communities of color, low-income communities and indigenous populations—would sort of be placed in a much more dangerous situation by the things that they were proposing. So I knew that I could not be a part of that, and I decided to walk away.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AMY GOODMAN: Chris Zarba, you left in February. Talk about the reasons you left. You’re ex-director of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CHRIS ZARBA: Actually, I was planning on retiring a year before I really retired. And I had identified a number of excellent candidates that I would recommend for people to take my position when I retired. After the election, those people who were interested in the position backed down. And I actually decided to stay an additional year, because I truly believed in the agency and the mission of the Science Advisory Board, and I thought if I stayed another year, I could be helpful in helping the organization get through a very difficult time.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AMY GOODMAN: And what was your reaction yesterday when President Trump tweeted that Scott Pruitt was out?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CHRIS ZARBA: Well, my immediate reaction was—I mean, I think there’s 12 or 14 individual investigations on his ethical behavior. And while I think they all should continue, they really are quite trivial compared to some of the other things that Scott Pruitt was pushing for. And that’s why I’m here. And at the top of that list is the bill that he has proposed that’s called transparency in regulatory science. And the implications are huge to the health of the American public. And it’s important that that message get out there and people be aware of what’s happening.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the EPA Science Advisory Board and what was happening to it, Chris Zarba.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CHRIS ZARBA: So, the Science Advisory Board—anything that EPA does that is based on science of consequence, it really requires—sometimes it’s by law, and sometimes you just have to do it—an independent science review. So the Science Advisory Board consists of—and the panels and the standing committees underneath it—200 to 300 nationally recognized scientists. They’re all cleared for ethics conflicts of interest. They come from industry, academia, state and local government. They conduct independent reviews, and they write reports that summarize the strengths and limitations of the science that the EPA is going to be using.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What happened in the past year, the rules of governing the Science Advisory Board changed quite substantially as a result of an October 31st directive from Scott Pruitt. And there were a variety of changes, but some of the key ones were that the term limit for SAB members went from six years to three. So each year we went from an 18 percent turnover rate to over a 36 percent turnover rate. The second thing was, is that any SAB member that had an active EPA grant needed to be terminated. So I had to pick up the phone and fire quite a few of these nationally recognized scientists. And at the same time, if these scientists had a grant from industry, there was no issue with that. It was only if you had an EPA grant. And the third and most concerning thing that we had to do is that in considering new members of the SAB, we couldn’t consider anyone that had an active EPA grant, which meant that a huge portion of some of the most qualified scientists in the nation could not even be considered for these positions. And when you put all those three things together, it certainly leads to the perception that the Science Advisory Board could be compromised, and it would make people question the reports that will be coming out in the coming months.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us who Steven Milloy is, the architect of the tobacco industry’s defense of the dangers of cigarette smoke?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CHRIS ZARBA: Yeah. So, in the past several years, Congress has tried to pass a bill called the HONEST Act. And it was an act that would apply just to EPA, and it would limit the kind of data that we could use to set policy. It never passed. But it then was proposed by Scott Pruitt, and it’s called the transparency in—transparency in regulatory science. And what that does is it prevents EPA from using any data where all the information is not made publicly available.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So, much of the data EPA uses is human subject data, where people, let’s say, in a community were accidentally exposed to contaminated drinking water. They were—got sick, had problems with that. It was found out, unfortunately, and then scientists would come in and study what happened and what exposures people had and what the consequences were. Well, while that was a terrible—those things are terrible, they do provide a unique opportunity for scientists to get real data on what’s safe—what the safe level is or dangerous level is for different contaminants. In getting the public to agree to let the scientists use their data, they frequently sign confidentiality agreements, which means that we, the scientists, cannot share the person’s name or phone number or address, so that they have that anonymity. And basically, this act is proposing that if all of that data isn’t made publicly available, scientists and EPA can’t use it to set regulations, which means that the vast majority of science that EPA has to set clean levels for different contaminants and classes of contaminants in the environment goes away, and all of those rules go away.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There was a recent study done by a group called the Environment Protection Network, and they calculated that if this law had passed 20 years ago, approximately 50,000 Americans would have died each year in the past 20 years. So, if you add that up, it comes out to about a million Americans could have died prematurely as the result of that bill. So, when I said earlier that the ethical issues with Scott Pruitt are trivial compared to some of these bigger issues, this is what I’m referring to. A million Americans is important.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking with Chris Zarba, ex-director of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board—he left the EPA in February—and Mustafa Ali, one of the first to resign last year after EPA chief Scott Pruitt started. Well, yesterday, it was announced Scott Pruitt is out. When we come back, we’ll speak to the mother who confronted Scott Pruitt this week in a restaurant, demanding he resign.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">horner ggl doc:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Particulate Holocaust:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">11/2012 Horner sues EPA and Lisa Jackson on particulate matter research (pm 2.5),</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here Horner seems to finally have jumped the shark, accusing UNC of Nazi-style human experimentation:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This seems really bizarre on its face, but is probably more an extension of earlier efforts than a radical departure. The charge is that the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, under the auspices of the EPA, did not tell the participants that they were being gassed with diesel exhaust and, more worrying, particulate matter, which, to hear them tell it, can kill almost immediately. To support this contention, they brought in ACSH's John Dunn, MD JD, which is not surprising since they have been hired liars for corporations for decades, but what is surprising is that Dunn had been making precisely the opposite argument for decades against air pollution regulations (ozone, CO2, etc.). One person who volunteered to participate claims severe coughing/lung damage, and is asking two million dollars for treatment presumably, but also pain and suffering/trauma (where is tort reform when you need it?). Another plaintiff is listed as a member of ATP?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even more heartbreaking, the lawyers themselves have been terribly traumatized:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Flack Milloy claims to have an uncle in a concentration camp where medical experiments were done, and thus is traumatized by the EPA: “16. Mr. Milloy has dedicated a majority of his current work effort to expose and stop the EPA's improper, unethical and illegal human experimentation. Mr. Milloy is deeply aggrieved by the kind of human experimentation being conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and will not be relieved until it stops.”...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He’s not alone:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“19. Dr. Schnare’s parents selected his name, David, to honor the last male relative to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">die before his birth. That man’s name was David Steiner, a Jew who died in Buchenwald</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">concentration camp on May 3, 1945, 21 days after the camp was liberated.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">horner on case? Trauma?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Schnare? States he was married near the campus where the experiments were done, and can not even walk by EPA building (and enjoy the aesthetics of the building?) in DC without anguish.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">They make many demands to ease their trauma, but here their true aim becomes clear: “"Fourth, Plaintiffs seek injunctive relief requiring EPA to withdraw and destroy or excise any publications in any form that are based, even in part, on results of illegal human experimentation.” [emphasis mine;also a bit hypocritical in light on his 2015 testimony to House Science Comm on preservation of EPA records]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">…</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">or to regulate based on the study:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">G. Seventh Claim for Relief</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“To repair ethical lapses and as a matter of equitable relief, Plaintiffs ask the Court</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">to stay implementation of any rules authorized under the Clean Air Act to control fine particulate matter until such time as the Agency can review the regulatory basis it used in their promulgation, amend its support documents and otherwise reevaluate the risks from fine</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">particulate matter to ensure EPA does not rely in any fashion upon illegal human</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">experimentation. “ (emphasis added)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/2012-09-21-Complaint-as-Filed.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">end ggl</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/12/18/16532/texas-weakens-chemical-exposure-guidelines-opens-door-polluters</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">AUSTIN— In 2007, Texas regulators quietly relaxed the state’s long-term air pollution guideline for benzene, one of the world’s most toxic and thoroughly studied chemicals. The number they came up with, still in effect, was 40 percent weaker, or less health-protective, than the old one.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The decision by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) was a boon for oil refineries, petrochemical plants and other benzene-emitting facilities, because it allowed them to release more benzene into the air without triggering regulatory scrutiny. But it defied the trend of scientific research, which shows that even small amounts of benzene can cause leukemia. The American Petroleum Institute, lobbyist for some of the nation’s largest benzene producers, privately acknowledged as early as 1948 that the only "absolutely safe" dose was zero.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s "the most irresponsible action I've heard of in my life," said Jim Tarr, an air-quality consultant who worked for the TCEQ’s predecessor agency in the 1970s. "I certainly can't find another regulatory agency in the U.S. that's done that."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The benzene decision was part of Texas’ sweeping overhaul of its air pollution guidelines. An analysis by InsideClimate News shows that the TCEQ has loosened two-thirds of the protections for the 45 chemicals it has re-assessed since 2007, even though the state’s guidelines at the time were already among the nation’s weakest.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The changes are being supervised by TCEQ toxicologist Michael Honeycutt, who began updating the way Texas develops its guidelines in 2003, when he was promoted to division chief. A genial, bespectacled man who takes great pride in his work, Honeycutt is a trusted advisor to top TCEQ officials and often acts as the agency’s scientific spokesman. He is also a frequent critic of federal efforts to reduce air pollution.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Honeycutt's actions reflect Texas’s pro-industry approach to air quality, which InsideClimate News and the Center for Public Integrity have been examiningfor the past year and a half.&nbsp; Most of the air-quality guidelines the state’s oil and gas producers are supposed to meet are not legally enforceable regulations. That means violators are rarely punished, and residents who complain about foul air near drilling sites have few places to turn for help.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Texas has made its anti-regulatory stance known on the national front. Attorney General Greg Abbott, the state’s governor-elect, has taken legal action against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 19 times since 2010, arguing that overly restrictive regulations stifle business growth, cost jobs and threaten the state’s economy.&nbsp; The EPA is “a runaway federal agency that must be reined in,” Abbott said last year when he challenged greenhouse gas regulations.&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Honeycutt has publicly criticized the EPA for being overzealous in its regulation of ozone, which exacerbates asthma; particulate matter, a known respiratory hazard; and hexavalent chromium, the cancer-causing chemical that launched the Erin Brockovich case. In testimony before a congressional committee in 2011, he said the EPA had been overly cautious in evaluating the toxicity of mercury, a powerful neurotoxin known to lower IQ. Mercury is particularly harmful to developing fetuses.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"EPA ignores the fact that Japanese eat 10 times more fish than Americans do and have higher levels of mercury in their blood, but have lower rates of coronary heart disease and high scores on their IQ tests," Honeycutt said in a letter responding to written questions from one of the committee members after the hearing.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">State Rep. Lon Burnam, a Fort Worth Democrat who has tried for years to strengthen Texas public health regulations, said Honeycutt's role as chief toxicologist is more political than scientific.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I consider him an apologist for the polluters," Burnam said. "I think he doesn't give a tinker's dam about public health."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Honeycutt said the toxicologists on his staff are good scientists who take their jobs seriously.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref PM holocaust "secret science"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.nrdc.org/experts/john-walke/political-vendetta-against-health-safeguards-founded-shocking-falsehoods</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Political Vendetta Against Health Safeguards Founded on Shocking Falsehoods</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">August 01, 2013 John Walke&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some Congressional Republicans have mounted a feverish campaign against long-established science showing a clear causal association between fine soot pollution (PM2.5) and premature death. Their all-too-transparent agenda is to attack clean air health safeguards that are projected to save tens of thousands of lives and avoid hundreds of thousands of asthma attacks and heart attacks annually, while delivering health benefits to Americans that outweigh costs to polluters by tens of billions of dollars. Republicans have failed in numerous prior attempts to eliminate these safeguards legislatively.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So now they have revived and ramped up a political tactic from the late 1990's that already has been discredited, when Republicans and industry lobbyists unsuccessfully challenged EPA's 1997 smog and soot standards. (Query: where were Republican members of Congress with their indignation and assaults when the George W. Bush administration relied upon these same studies and science for 8 years?)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX ) has vowed to subpoena EPA to seize confidential patient data underlying a subset of the medical studies showing this soot-death linkage. Smith took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal this week to level a fusillade of charges against EPA that was as notable for its cascade of misrepresentations and omitted facts, as it was for its vehemence.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In this post I will examine some of the facts you would never know from hearing just the politicized Republican view of soot pollution, as well as crucial information that these politicians are misrepresenting, selectively misquoting and ignoring.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Misrepresenting the Full Body of Scientific Evidence: Republican lawmakers pretend that the massive body of scientific evidence showing a causal association between soot pollution and mortality comes down to “secret” data from just two studies. This pretense is flat out false. The most basic investigation of public resources reveals a much broader body of scientific studies examining and reaffirming the causal association between fine soot pollution and mortality. These studies post-date the so-called "Harvard Six Cities" and "American Cancer Society" studies, some of them independently re-analyze the studies, and they consistently find the same causal soot-mortality relationship.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In revising and updating National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for fine particulate matter, EPA devotes an entire chapter of its Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) to cataloguing and reviewing updated health effects studies, and explaining how they were incorporated into the agency's 2012 standards review. See, e.g., here (at pp. 5-7 to 5-8 listing 5 updates from the proposed 2012 RIA; fig 5-4 at p. 5-73; pp. 5-31 to 5-35).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2009, Dr. C. Arden Pope published “Fine-Particulate Air Pollution and Life Expectancy in the United States,” reaffirming past studies and finding “improvements in life expectancy during the 1980s and 1990s were associated with reductions in fine-particulate pollution across the study areas, even after adjustment for various socioeconomic, demographic, and proxy variables.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2013, Dr. Andrew W. Correia published “Effect of Air Pollution Control on Life Expectancy in the United States: An Analysis of 545 U.S. Counties for the Period from 2000 to 2007.” This study found increases in mean life expectancy with decreases in PM2.5 concentrations, with stronger associations “in more urban and densely populated counties.” The study concludes that “[r]eductions in PM2.5 were associated with improvements in life expectancy for the period from 2000 to 2007. Air pollution control in the last decade has continued to have a positive impact on public health.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I could go on and on listing individual studies. But the first bullet above contains some of those studies for readers wishing to dive deeper than Congressman Smith has.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Misrepresenting Independent Scientific Reanalysis: Congressman Smith charges in his Wall Street Journal op-ed that the data in the Harvard and American Cancer Society studies “have not been subjected to scrutiny and analysis by independent scientists.” This is an especially outrageous falsehood.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In December 2012, a seminal report [pdf] entitled the 2010 Global Burden of Disease "estimate[d] over 2.1 million premature deaths and 52 million years of healthy life lost in 2010 due to ambient fine particle air pollution, fully 2/3 of the burden worldwide." Drawing upon a broad body of data and studies from around the world, the report examined the risks of premature mortality linked to soot pollution and independently affirmed the results of the Harvard Six Cities study. The Global Burden of Disease researchers found significant mortality impacts from fine particulate pollution. They concluded that “[t]he magnitude of disease burden from particulate matter is substantially higher than estimated in previous comparative risk assessment analyses.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As explained in a release by the esteemed Health Effects Institute, a contributor to the report, "[t]he 2010 [Global Burden of Disease report] was produced by a rigorous scientific process involving over 450 global experts and led by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington along with its partner institutions: the World Health Organization, the University of Queensland, Australia, Johns Hopkins University, and Harvard University."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Similarly, in July 2000, the Health Effects Institute issued a special report entitled “Reanalysis of the Harvard Six Cities Study and the American Cancer Society Study of Particulate Air Pollution and Mortality.” The explicit goal of that study was “to conduct a rigorous and independent assessment of the findings of the Six Cities and ACS Studies of air pollution and mortality.” (p.ii) To accomplish this goal, the team of researchers had “access to the original data” once they entered into contractual agreements and a Memorandum of Understanding to ensure that confidentiality was protected. (p.4). The report concluded that “reanalyses assured the quality of the original data, replicated the original results, and tested those results against alternative risk models and analytic approaches” (pp.iii-iv).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(For those unfamiliar with HEI, it is "a nonprofit corporation chartered in 1980 as an independent research organization to provide high-quality, impartial, and relevant science on the health effects of air pollution." Funded jointly by the federal government and industry, it is an honest broker that has garnered widespread respect for its scientific expertise, integrity and research excellence.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA's Integrated Science Assessment for the PM2.5 standards explained (p. 7-95) that the Harvard and ACS studies have "undergone extensive independent reanalysis," and "were based on cohorts that were broadly representative of the U.S. population." Reviewing this assessment and the broader body of epidemiological and toxicological studies, EPA's official Clean Air Science Advisory Committee (CASAC) recommended “'upgrading' the causal classification for PM2.5 and total mortality to 'causal' for both the short-term and long-term time frames." CASAC further found "[t]here are epidemiological studies showing a positive association of all-cause mortality with PM2.5.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A 2010 American Heart Association study, entitled "Particulate Matter Air Pollution and Cardiovascular Disease: An Update to the Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association," concluded that "intensive independent reanalyses corroborated the original findings of both [the Harvard and ACS] studies and resulted in innovative methodological contributions that demonstrated the robustness of the results to alternative modeling approaches." "Since 2004, there have been further reanalysis of both studies."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So even if the entire body of soot-mortality causation evidence did rest on the solid foundation of the Harvard and American Cancer Society studies—a cramped view that is demonstrably false—those studies have been independently and repeatedly reanalyzed and reaffirmed by other peer-reviewed scientific studies and initiatives.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Misrepresenting Views of the National Academy of Sciences: Congressman Smith's op-ed took further aim at the scientific data EPA has relied upon for its clean air health standards with this oblique, abbreviated claim: "The National Academy of Sciences declared in 2004 that the data EPA is using is of 'little use for decison-making.'"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This claim is immediately puzzling, since a more recent 2010 report from EPA's Science Advisory Board, which includes members of the Academy, concludes that the soot-related mortality "benefit estimates that EPA derives for [particulate matter] are based on two well-researched and highly respected cohort studies of air pollution health effects, the Harvard Six Cities Study and the American Cancer Study (ACS) Cancer Prevention Study. These are good foundations for the health benefits estimates for PM and these studies are supported by other recent studies and expert evidence gathered by the EPA project team."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The puzzle is cleared up by a must-read, devastating letter to Chairman Smith from Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) that I will simply quote in relevant part:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is a gross mis-characterization of what the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report says. What is most remarkable about this mischaracterization is that you actually provided the original NAS document in one of your previous letters which you attached to the July 22 letter. The relevant sentence you purport to paraphrase reads in full:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Although these cohorts have provided critical evidence for long-term effects, evidence from further follow-up of these two U.S. cohorts alone will have little use for decisionmaking." (emphasis added)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I assume that the mis-characterization in your July 22 letter is due to a misunderstanding between a research finding and a cohort. However, if this is a case of misunderstanding then it gives me great pause in considering the prospect of you and your staff receiving the underlying data being sought.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An especially intemperate July 22 letter from Congressman Smith to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy repeats the selectively misquoted snippet above while continuing to ignore the broader body of supportive scientific studies. Then Congressman Smith's letter actually has the gall to accuse EPA of "practice[s] border[ing] on scientific misonduct" in his own missive that commits serial violations of scientific misconduct.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One could also add, as amply demonstrated above, that EPA is not relying upon these two cohorts or the Harvard and ACS studies alone in the agency's decionmaking or rulemakings.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Misrepresenting With Salacious “Secrecy” Charges: The Republican political campaign against clean air health standards has settled on a "secret data" talking point that owes more to an overarching, conspiratorial political narrative to characterize the current administration (think IRS, NSA) than it does to any truth. EPA has flat out rejected this secrecy charge:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA is transparent with regard to the scientific bases of agency decision making and disagrees with assessments and your assertion that the agency relies on "secret" data in regulatory actions and of health benefits. In setting the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) in assessing health benefits anticipated from air pollution regulations, the EPA relies on the scientific studies that are published in the peer-reviewed literature. The EPA provides the information used in regulatory decisions, including the epidemiological studies, in the publicly available docket accompanying each rulemaking.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As EPA already has explained to Senator David Vitter (R-LA) in April and July, 2013 letters that Congressman Smith's office either is unaware of or ignores:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The complete, linked set of data underlying these studies is held by the scientific researchers that conducted the relevant research, not the EPA."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"With regard to your request for the underlying raw data from the relevant studies, the EPA has requested from the relevant researchers the research data required to be provided under the Shelby Amendment, consistent with applicable protections for private medical and similar information. As indicated in the enclosed letters, this request has been made for the two remaining studies that are the subject of your request that are subject to the Shelby Amendment."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So why is Congressman Smith preparing to subpoena data from EPA that the agency does not have; that EPA has told Congress it does not have; and that the agency has requested from the researchers that do have the data? Who knows, but it's hard not to conclude that the House GOP subpoena enterprise is politically motivated and publicity-driven.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The truth is there is a basic difference between secrecy and confidential patient data subject to confidentiality agreements. The researchers and reanalysis initiatives that committed to the confidentiality policies of the relevant research institutions, as HEI and the GBD teams did, were able to access the data.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Congresswoman Johnson's letter offered a searing commentary with one possible, indeed obvious, motivation behind the Republican subpoena:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Others may suggest that these are efforts to supply outside parties with data that they otherwise could not obtain. I would also strongly object to obtaining this data for outside parties, who would not otherwise be given access to this sensitive data. That is not our job. ....</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I am forced to question the scientific legitimacy of groups which cannot already obtain this data. They must not be legitimate scientists or must be untrustworthy with human research subject data, or they could simply apply to the American Cancer Society directly. I certainly don't think Congress should be obtaining confidential human research data to supply to outside groups that can't pass ethical muster, and I sincerely hope that is not the goal of this endeavor.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Congresswoman's letter asks the simple question: "And for what purpose?"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is noteworthy that industry attorneys challenging EPA’s various ambient air quality standards have not even bothered or deigned to waste words in their legal briefs on the salacious “secret data” charge because it is demonstrably false and lacks any legal weight. [hmmn, not e&e?] These highly capable industry attorneys know that EPA has more than enough studies, data and support in the publicly available rulemaking records to justify stronger clean air standards. And they are right, with federal courts upholding every one of EPA’s air quality standards in the face of industry lawsuits.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some Congressional Republicans have chosen to manufacture a false political controversy over the clear scientific evidence, precisely because there is no serious legal or scientific dispute about the validity of the evidence.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Misrepresenting White House Statements: Congressman Smith’s op-ed also asserts that “President Obama's Office of Management and Budget recently acknowledged that ‘significant uncertainty remains’ about the EPA's claims based on its data sets, saying that the claims ‘may be misleading’ and should be treated with caution.” This misrepresentation rivals the outrageous falseness of the independent reanalysis claim.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The OMB report snippets quoted in the congressman’s op-ed were not directed at the causal association between fine soot pollution and mortality found in the Harvard and American Cancer Society studies. The passage from the OMB report (p.15) makes abundantly clear that the Congressman's selectively (mis)quoted characterizations of the report concerned entirely different issues: (1) “the ranges of benefits and costs” that OMB believed should be “treated with some caution”; and (2) “aggregating high and low-estimates” of benefits and costs that could “result in totals that may be misleading.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I suspect EPA would readily admit the uncertainties associated with the ranges, high-end and low-end estimates of avoided premature deaths, along with other health endpoints and cost projections. But this is wildly different from charging that OMB agrees with contentions that the causal association between soot and death is itself uncertain or EPA’s findings are misleading. What is shockingly misleading, instead, is the way that Congressman Smith’s op-end misrepresents the OMB report.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And what of uncertainty? Scientists would be the first to acknowledge that uncertainty is a perennial feature of scientific inquiry and research. A 2002 National Research Council report, aptly entitled “Estimating the Public Health Benefits of Proposed Air Pollution Regulations,” makes the following sensible points that some politicians willfully ignore:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Even great uncertainty does not imply that action to promote or protect public health should be delayed. Decisions about whether to act, when to act, and how aggressively to act can only be made with some understanding of the likelihood and consequences of alternative courses of action. The potential for improving decisions through research must be balanced against the public health costs incurred because of a delay in the implementation of controls. Complete certainty is an unattainable ideal. (pp.126-127)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There is a common misperception that a high degree of certainty is required for regulatory actions to take place to protect public health. As a result, primary health benefits analyses that more fully and accurately portray the uncertainties might not be considered useful. It is unrealistic for EPA to defer decisions until it can make them on the basis of perfect science. A careful and deliberate balancing of the benefits and costs is required, and this balancing must be informed by a fair assessment of the current levels of uncertainty and a realistic evaluation of the likely reductions in uncertainty attainable through further research. (p.148)"</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">So even the OMB report’s statements about uncertainty in benefit-cost totals and ranges must be understood in light of the NRC’s sensible commitment to public health.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Misrepresenting EPA’s Responsiveness to Congress: While this is more political theatrics than scientific insult, Congressman Smith’s recent letter to EPA attempts to paint the agency as unresponsive to legitimate congressional inquiries, by cataloguing a series of correspondence to which EPA allegedly has failed to respond. The problem with this, as Congresswoman Johnson’s letter points out, is that “EPA has responded on at least two occasions with detailed information pertaining to the studies you requested.” And EPA has responded separately to similar inquiries by Senator Vitter leading up to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy’s confirmation. It’s one thing if those responses have not satisfied Congressman Smith; but it just seems petty and sensationalist to imply wrongly that the agency has not responded to earlier inquiries.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is not new, this politicized campaign against clean air health safeguards founded on attacking and misrepresenting established science. As I wrote in a June 2012 blog post following a House committee hearing where I testified:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), while noting helpfully that he was not a “medical doctor,” nonetheless asserted at a congressional hearing that there was no “medical negative” to mercury and soot pollution. He went on to claim that EPA’s numbers on premature deaths that the mercury and air toxics standards helped avoid were “pulled out of the thin air.” Unsurprisingly, real doctors at the American Lung Association, American Public Health Association and American Academy of Pediatrics wrote Barton expressing that they “were shocked at such statements.” [pdf]. These actual doctors responded to Barton’s outrageous statements as “professionals that treat patients who are impacted by lung, cardiovascular and neurological impairments” linked to air pollution. These doctors “see in the patients we treat what [] the scientific literature lets us know to expect: that air pollution makes people sick and cuts lives short.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The doctors’ letter included an attachment listing dozens of studies showing the “medical negatives” from soot pollution, including premature death. To my knowledge, Congressman Barton never did respond to the doctors’ letter.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If Congress establishes the practice through legislation or subpoenas or political gamesmanship in which any American can expect their most private medical information to fall into the hands of lawyers and lobbyists and corporations or even the Internet, more thoughtful elected leaders will have to ask themselves how we are going to conduct these health studies in the future. Why would anyone sensibly participate in studies knowing that confidential patient data could become the play thing of politicians and industry?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Congresswoman Johnson put it in her letter to Chairman Smith: "The truth is that there is no reason to warrant violating the trust of hundreds of thousands of American citizens who volunteered their personal information to make everybody's lives better."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TAGS:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cleanairactcongressepaozoneozonestandardpm25protectionnotpollutionsoot</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://theintercept.com/2017/02/05/republicans-want-to-make-the-epa-great-again-by-gutting-health-regulations/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MUCH OF THE COUNTRY has been watching in horror as Donald Trump has made good on his promises to eviscerate the Environmental Protection Agency — delaying 30 regulations, severely limiting the information staffers can release, and installing Scott Pruitt as the agency’s administrator to destroy the agency from within. But even those keeping their eyes on the EPA may have missed a quieter attack on environmental protections now being launched in Congress.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Tuesday, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology is expected to hold a hearing on a bill to undermine health regulations that is based on a strategy cooked up by tobacco industry strategists more than two decades ago. At what Republicans on the committee have dubbed the “Making EPA Great Again” hearing, lawmakers are likely to discuss the Secret Science Reform Act, a bill that would limit the EPA to using only data that can be replicated or made available for “independent analysis.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The proposal may sound reasonable enough at first. But because health research often contains confidential personal information that is illegal to share, the bill would prevent the EPA from using many of the best scientific studies. It would also prohibit using studies of one-time events, such as the Gulf oil spill or the effect of a partial ban of chlorpyrifos on children, which fueled the EPA’s decision to eliminate all agricultural uses of the pesticide, because these events — and thus the studies of them — can’t be repeated. Although it is nominally about transparency, the bill leaves intact protections that allow industry to keep much of its own inner workings and skewed research secret from the public, while delegitimizing studies done by researchers with no vested interest in their outcome.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The top-billed witness scheduled to provide testimony at the House hearing on Tuesday is a lawyer named Jeffrey Holmstead, who has has worked to block the EPA’s efforts to limit mercury pollution while representing coal companies including Duke Energy, Progress Energy, and Southern Company. Meanwhile, Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican chair of the House Science Committee who has been zealously promoting the“secret science” bill, is also in the pocket of the energy companies. Though he’s also received funding from Koch Industries and iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel Communications), Smith’s biggest contributors are oil and gas companies, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Also testifying on Tuesday will be Kimberly White of the American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry trade group.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This bald industry bid to subvert public health-based regulations that can cut into profit isn’t new. What’s new is that this upside-down environmental attack, in which those who benefit directly from polluting industries are policing the independent scientists who can show the harms of their products, could now succeed. Although the House passed the secret science bill in 2014 and 2015, it never made it to the Senate floor. After it passed the House in 2015, Barbara Boxer called the bill “insane,” Bernie Sanders called it “laughable,” and President Obama promised to veto it. This time, it’s not a joke. With a Republican majority in both houses and Trump in the White House, the secret science act could easily become law.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[epa wrecking crew]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no links</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The small group of lawyers and PR strategists orchestrating the secret science effort are closely tied to those attacking the EPA from within. All have connections to either big tobacco, oil, or both — and almost all have been affiliated with a small, right-wing group called the Energy & Environment Legal Institute. It’s interesting that E&E should fixate on transparency since the group has gone to great lengths to conceal its donors. Nevertheless, public records document some of the group’s ties to big coal companies, including the now bankrupt Alpha Natural Resources, Peabody Coal, and Arch Coal.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">E&E senior policy fellow Steve Milloy, a former tobacco industry attorney, has perhaps written the most — at least publicly — about the secret science strategy, both in an ebook and for Steve Bannon’s Breitbart News. Milloy calls Myron Ebell, who oversaw Trump’s EPA transition team, his “friend and hero.” In the late 1990s, Milloy and Ebell were both members of the American Petroleum Institute’s Global Climate Science Communications Team, which laid out the oil industry’s strategy to undermine the science of global warming. Meanwhile, three of Milloy’s colleagues from E&E are also members of the EPA landing team. Among them are David Schnare, E&E’s general counsel, who is perhaps best known for harassing Michael Mann and other environmental scientists with FOIA requests, and Amy Oliver Cooke, an energy industry think tanker who created MILF, Mothers In Love with Fracking.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Amy Oliver Cooke describes her love for fracking.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Two other E&E associates have been wrapped up in the secret science strategy for years.</b> The first is Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at both E&E and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who is also a member of Trump’s EPA landing team. Back in the 1990s, Horner worked for Bracewell LLP, the law firm (formerly known as Bracewell & Giuliani) supplying the top witness at Tuesday’s hearing. The dawning awareness of the dangers of second-hand smoke was putting tobacco companies on the defensive, including Horner’s client, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. In a 1996 memo, which seems to be the earliest known reference to the secret science strategy, Horner laid out a plan to fight back.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Horner to RJR Reynolds 1996 Bracewell Giuliani</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6 pages</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We propose creating, beginning with congressional oversight and a goal of enacting legislation, required review procedures which EPA and other federal agencies must follow,” Horner wrote in his memo. “This is important to your organization because, at some point in the near future, EPA will most likely be ordered to re-examine ETS [environmental tobacco smoke].” Horner’s plan? “To construct explicit procedural hurdles the agency must follow in issuing scientific reports. Because there is virtually no chance of affecting change on this issue if the focus is ETS.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Horner already saw that the secret science approach could subvert far more than the imminent regulations based on the science about second-hand smoke. “Our approach is one of addressing process as opposed to scientific substance, and global applicability to industry rather than focusing on any single industrial sector,” he wrote, going on to explain how the strategy could be used to interfere with the EPA’s efforts to address mercury emissions, hazardous waste, and dioxins as well as restrictions on air pollution.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Attack on Air Pollution Protections</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By 1998, Powell Tate, a lobbying firm that represented R.J. Reynolds, had helped organize a secret science working group to look at questions of “data access,” according to one internal memo. The memo clarified that its intention was to “focus public opinion on the importance of requiring the disclosure of tax-payer funded analytical data.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though it was the brainchild of tobacco strategists, the energy industry soon followed Horner’s advice and adopted the secret science approach as a way to hamper air quality improvement efforts. In the 1990s, the EPA began efforts to reduce the amount of tiny particles in the air, a kind of pollution known as PM 2.5, that are produced by combustion from power plants, cars, and manufacturing. The clearest evidence of the need to limit such particles came from the “Six Cities” study, in which a team of Harvard researchers clearly tied higher levels of PM 2.5 particles to increased mortality, as well as lung cancer, asthma, and sudden infant death syndrome.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the new limits were designed to save lives — preventing 15,000 premature deaths annually, according to EPA projections — the rules would also increase costs in some sectors by, for instance, making energy companies install pollution equipment. In response, a group funded by the Koch brothers rose up to challenge the EPA and the scientists on the grounds that scientists were hiding their data from the public. Citizens for a Sound Economy, a forerunner of the Koch brothers’ current Freedom Works, demanded that the Harvard researchers provide their original data so an “independent” scientist could analyze it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At first the researchers refused to share the data, which they had collected from individuals with the promise that their health information would remain confidential. Eventually, after an elaborate and expensive pressure campaign, the Six Cities researchers agreed to allow their data to be reanalyzed by two separate teams of researchers. Both confirmed the group’s findings that rates of PM 2.5 were correlated with increased mortality.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA went on to institute the changes. And scientists throughout the world have since come to recognize the dangers posed by small particle air pollution, which accounted for “over 2.1 million premature deaths and 52 million years of healthy life lost in 2010,” according to the 2010 Global Burden of Disease report. The report drew on research by more than 450 experts from around the world and was led by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington; the World Health Organization; the University of Queensland, Australia; Johns Hopkins University; and Harvard University.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite the scientific consensus, a small group of extremists has continued to fixate on the idea that the science on the dangers of air pollution is somehow a sham. Even more disturbingly, this small extreme group now holds sway in key parts of the U.S. government. Not least among them is Rep. Lamar Smith, who in 2013 subpoenaed the EPA in yet another effort to obtain the data from the Six Cities study.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an op-ed that ran in the Wall Street Journal shortly afterward, Smith noted that “the data in question have not been subjected to scrutiny and analysis by independent scientists.” Smith pressed his point in a House Science Committee hearing a few days later, insisting that independent scientists were being denied access to the air pollution data. When Democrat Donna Edwards pressed Smith about who these scientists were, he mentioned the name Jim Enstrom.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Enstrom, you may not be surprised to learn, has been a research fellow at E&E and has received money from the Council for Tobacco Research, the Tobacco Institute, Philip Morris, and R.J. Reynolds. In part because he didn’t disclose his tobacco industry ties in a study he did on the connection between second-hand smoke and mortality (which he found to be inconclusive), he was widely criticized by the scientific community, including the American Cancer Society, and was subsequently dismissed from UCLA.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Correction: Feb. 7, 2017</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An earlier version of this article gave the incorrect name of a representative of the American Chemistry Council who testified today before the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Her name is Kimberly White, not Kimberly Smith ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;... that the CASAC PM Panel be independent and unbiased,”& ...></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">oops 2x</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MUCH OF THE COUNTRY has been watching in horror as Donald Trump has made good on his promises to eviscerate the Environmental Protection Agency — delaying 30 regulations, severely limiting the information staffers can release, and installing Scott Pruitt as the agency’s administrator to destroy the agency from within. But even those keeping their eyes on the EPA may have missed a quieter attack on environmental protections now being launched in Congress.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Tuesday, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology is expected to hold a hearing on a bill to undermine health regulations that is based on a strategy cooked up by tobacco industry strategists more than two decades ago. At what Republicans on the committee have dubbed the “Making EPA Great Again” hearing, lawmakers are likely to discuss the Secret Science Reform Act, a bill that would limit the EPA to using only data that can be replicated or made available for “independent analysis.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The proposal may sound reasonable enough at first. But because health research often contains confidential personal information that is illegal to share, the bill would prevent the EPA from using many of the best scientific studies. It would also prohibit using studies of one-time events, such as the Gulf oil spill or the effect of a partial ban of chlorpyrifos on children, which fueled the EPA’s decision to eliminate all agricultural uses of the pesticide, because these events — and thus the studies of them — can’t be repeated. Although it is nominally about transparency, the bill leaves intact protections that allow industry to keep much of its own inner workings and skewed research secret from the public, while delegitimizing studies done by researchers with no vested interest in their outcome.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The top-billed witness scheduled to provide testimony at the House hearing on Tuesday is a lawyer named Jeffrey Holmstead, who has has worked to block the EPA’s efforts to limit mercury pollution while representing coal companies including Duke Energy, Progress Energy, and Southern Company. Meanwhile, Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican chair of the House Science Committee who has been zealously promoting the“secret science” bill, is also in the pocket of the energy companies. Though he’s also received funding from Koch Industries and iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel Communications), Smith’s biggest contributors are oil and gas companies, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Also testifying on Tuesday will be Kimberly White of the American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry trade group.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This bald industry bid to subvert public health-based regulations that can cut into profit isn’t new. What’s new is that this upside-down environmental attack, in which those who benefit directly from polluting industries are policing the independent scientists who can show the harms of their products, could now succeed. Although the House passed the secret science bill in 2014 and 2015, it never made it to the Senate floor. After it passed the House in 2015, Barbara Boxer called the bill “insane,” Bernie Sanders called it “laughable,” and President Obama promised to veto it. This time, it’s not a joke. With a Republican majority in both houses and Trump in the White House, the secret science act could easily become law</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The small group of lawyers and PR strategists orchestrating the secret science effort are closely tied to those attacking the EPA from within. All have connections to either big tobacco, oil, or both — and almost all have been affiliated with a small, right-wing group called the Energy & Environment Legal Institute. It’s interesting that E&E should fixate on transparency since the group has gone to great lengths to conceal its donors. Nevertheless, public records document some of the group’s ties to big coal companies, including the now bankrupt Alpha Natural Resources, Peabody Coal, and Arch Coal.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">E&E senior policy fellow Steve Milloy, a former tobacco industry attorney, has perhaps written the most — at least publicly — about the secret science strategy, both in an ebook and for Steve Bannon’s Breitbart News. Milloy calls Myron Ebell, who oversaw Trump’s EPA transition team, his “friend and hero.” In the late 1990s, Milloy and Ebell were both members of the American Petroleum Institute’s Global Climate Science Communications Team, which laid out the oil industry’s strategy to undermine the science of global warming. Meanwhile, three of Milloy’s colleagues from E&E are also members of the EPA landing team. Among them are David Schnare, E&E’s general counsel, who is perhaps best known for harassing Michael Mann and other environmental scientists with FOIA requests, and Amy Oliver Cooke, an energy industry think tanker who created MILF, Mothers In Love with Fracking.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[vid]:amy Oliver Cooke describes her love for fracking.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Two other E&E associates have been wrapped up in the secret science strategy for years. The first is Christopher Horner, a senior fellow at both E&E and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, who is also a member of Trump’s EPA landing team. Back in the 1990s, Horner worked for Bracewell LLP, the law firm (formerly known as Bracewell & Giuliani)supplying the top witness at Tuesday’s hearing. The dawning awareness of the dangers of second-hand smoke was putting tobacco companies on the defensive, including Horner’s client, the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. In a 1996 memo, which seems to be the earliest known reference to the secret science strategy, Horner laid out a plan to fight back.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We propose creating, beginning with congressional oversight and a goal</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">al of enacting legislation, required review procedures which EPA and other federal agencies must follow,” Horner wrote in his memo. “This is important to your organization because, at some point in the near future, EPA will most likely be ordered to re-examine ETS [environmental tobacco smoke].” Horner’s plan? “To construct explicit procedural hurdles the agency must follow in issuing scientific reports. Because there is virtually no chance of affecting change on this issue if the focus is ETS.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Horner already saw that the secret science approach could subvert far more than the imminent regulations based on the science about second-hand smoke. “Our approach is one of addressing process as opposed to scientific substance, and global applicability to industry rather than focusing on any single industrial sector,” he wrote, going on to explain how the strategy could be used to interfere with the EPA’s efforts to address mercury emissions, hazardous waste, and dioxins as well as restrictions on air pollution.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Attack on Air Pollution Protections</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By 1998, Powell Tate, a lobbying firm that represented R.J. Reynolds, had helped organize a secret science working group to look at questions of “data access,” according to&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">one internal memo. The memo clarified that its intention was to “focus public opinion on the importance of requiring the disclosure of tax-payer funded analytical data.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Though it was the brainchild of tobacco strategists, the energy industry soon followed Horner’s advice and adopted the secret science approach as a way to hamper air quality improvement efforts. In the 1990s, the EPA began efforts to reduce the amount of tiny particles in the air, a kind of pollution known as PM 2.5, that are produced by combustion from power plants, cars, and manufacturing. The clearest evidence of the need to limit such particles came from the “Six Cities” study, in which a team of Harvard researchers clearly tied higher levels of PM 2.5 particles to increased mortality, as well as lung cancer, asthma, and sudden infant death syndrome.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the new limits were designed to save lives — preventing 15,000 premature deaths annually, according to EPA projections — the rules would also increase costs in some sectors by, for instance, making energy companies install pollution equipment. In response, a group funded by the Koch brothers rose up to challenge the EPA and the scientists on the grounds that scientists were hiding their data from the public. Citizens for a Sound Economy, a forerunner of the Koch brothers’ current Freedom Works, demanded that the Harvard researchers provide their original data so an “independent” scientist could analyze it.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At first the researchers refused to share the data, which they had collected from individuals with the promise that their health information would remain confidential. Eventually, after an elaborate and expensive pressure campaign, the Six Cities researchers agreed to allow their data to be reanalyzed by two separate teams of researchers. Both confirmed the group’s findings that rates of PM 2.5 were correlated with increased mortality.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA went on to institute the changes. And scientists throughout the world have since come to recognize the dangers posed by small particle air pollution, which accounted for “over 2.1 million premature deaths and 52 million years of healthy life lost in 2010,” according to the 2010 Global Burden of Disease report. The report drew on research by more than 450 experts from around the world and was led by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington; the World Health Organization; the University of Queensland, Australia; Johns Hopkins University; and Harvard University.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite the scientific consensus, a small group of extremists has continued to fixate on the idea that the science on the dangers of air pollution is somehow a sham. Even more disturbingly, this small extreme group now holds sway in key parts of the U.S. government. Not least among them is Rep. Lamar Smith, who in 2013 subpoenaed the EPA in yet another effort to obtain the data from the Six Cities study.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In an op-ed that ran in the Wall Street Journal shortly afterward, Smith noted that “the data in question have not been subjected to scrutiny and analysis by independent scientists.” Smith pressed his point in a House Science Committee hearing a few days later, insisting that independent scientists were being denied access to the air pollution data. When Democrat Donna Edwards pressed Smith about who these scientists were, he mentioned the name Jim Enstrom.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Enstrom, you may not be surprised to learn, has been a research fellow at E&E and has received money from the Council for Tobacco Research, the Tobacco Institute, Philip Morris, and R.J. Reynolds. In part because he didn’t disclose his tobacco industry ties in a study he did on the connection between second-hand smoke and mortality (which he found to be inconclusive), he was widely criticized by the scientific community, including the American Cancer Society, and was subsequently dismissed from UCLA.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://eelegal.org/ee-legal-letters-xi-ee-legal-sues-epa%E2%80%88for-stacking-independent-science-panel/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by Steve Milloy, Senior Policy Fellow</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On May 13, The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for illegal formation of a key science advisory committee. The committee at issue is the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee Particulate Matter Review Panel for 2015-2018 (CASAC PM Panel). E&E Legal filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of its members who include the Western States Trucking Association and Dr. James Enstrom, a Research Fellow and epidemiologist retired from the University of California, Los Angeles.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA has stacked the panel, which is required by law to be independent and unbiased, with researchers who have received over $190 million in discretionary EPA grants.&nbsp; This clearly violates the law and makes a mockery of the notion of ‘independent’ scientific review.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">We are asking the court to prevent the EPA from convening the panel until the panel can be formed in a balanced manner in compliance with applicable laws,” said Dr. David Schnare, E&E Legal’s General Counsel and a 33-year veteran of the EPA.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA’s regulation of ambient airborne fine particulate matter, soot or dust in outdoor air also called “PM2.5” (pronounced Pee-Em-Two-Point-Five”), has been scientifically controversial since the EPA began the process of regulating it in the early 1990s. The EPA claims that any inhalation of PM2.5 can cause death within hours and that PM2.5 in outdoor air kills hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. Not only has the EPA hidden from public scrutiny for over 20 years key scientific data that its PM2.5 regulation relies on, but also the agency stacks the legally required CASAC panel with EPA-paid researchers.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA’s claims about the lethality of PM2.5 have been a primary basis for the agency’s justification of its air quality standards for particulate matter and ozone, as well as regulations key to the Obama administration’s so-called “war on coal”, including the: Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, Mercury Air Transport Standard and Clean Power Plan. State implementation of EPA’s PM2.5 standards is also quite costly as evidenced by E&E Legal member Western States Trucking Association, whose own members are forced to spend tens of thousands of dollars retrofitting truck engines to comply with California state PM2.5 emissions requirements as mandated by the EPA.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Not only does the EPA pay researchers to produce controversial research that advances its PM2.5 regulatory agenda, but the agency pays the very same researchers to review their own controversial work. Of the 26 members the EPA selected to be on the CASAC PM Panel, 24 of them have been paid or are currently being paid by the EPA a total sum in excess of $190 million. The EPA’s supposedly ‘independent’ review process is entirely rigged to advance EPA’s agenda.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Both the Clean Air Act and the Federal Advisory Committee Act require that the CASAC PM Panel be independent and unbiased,” Schnare said. “We are asking the court to determine that an EPA advisory panel that operates on a consensus basis but that is 90 percent comprised of highly-paid EPA cronies does not meet the requirements of the law,” Schnare added.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA process for commissioning and evaluating PM2.5 research has been so rigged and so biased for so long that many scientists don’t even try to get nominated for CASAC panels any more. They’ve simply given up. A case study of this is E&E Legal member and PM2.5 researcher Jim Enstrom who, in questioning EPA’s PM2.5 science, has lost professional opportunities because of the extreme biases of the EPA, CASAC and current and former CASAC panel members. CASAC is a cabal, not an independent committee.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“As the EPA is at the very beginning a new round of review of PM2.5 regulation, as required by the Clean Air Act, our lawsuit is intended to make sure that process is conducted in an independent and unbiased manner as required by the law and expected by the public and Congress,” Schnare said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Joe Rajkovacz, with the Western States Trucking Association, noted in a Truck.com article, that it’s important to have an impartial committee review the EPA’s findings because of the negative financial impact the agency’s rulings could have on small-business truckers.&nbsp; “Federal law requires the EPA to run all of its rule-makings through an advisory committee, who is supposed to be an independent committee that weighs the science they are basing their rule-makings on,” he said. “What kind of science do you think we will get if most of the independent researchers’ financial well-being is dependent on grant money from the EPA?”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also according to Truck.com, “James E. Enstrom, a retired UCLA epidemiologist, also is a plaintiff in the lawsuit. He published a critical analysis in the peer-reviewed medical journal Inhalation Toxicology that failed to support a relationship between PM2.5 and premature deaths in California.” [BMJ?]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Subsequently, E&E?Legal has filed a petition for a temporary restraining order to prevent any action by the panel until the suit is heard.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ozone particulate PM2.5 6 cities milloy api, blk coc alford</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">why wd DC caller batasch out funding?! b/c thinks look legit?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://dailycaller.com/2017/06/14/debunked-study-exposes-the-huge-flaws-in-epa-science/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nb this is E&E publishing, legit&nbsp; vs horner lower case</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060013033</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no link img</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Scientists defend human testing program as critics lay siege</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Robin Bravender and Amanda Peterka, E&E reporters</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Greenwire: Friday, February 6, 2015</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Wanted: Nonsmoking, active adults to inhale nitrogen dioxide and ozone during a workout.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Those people will help U.S. EPA study the physiological changes caused by the exposure to dirty air. Participants would breathe clean air laced with pollution; exercise on and off during exposures; and have their breathing, blood pressure and heart rates monitored. If subjects participate in all four three-day sessions, they'll get $2,216.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It's one of several studies of human subjects currently being advertised by EPA.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The testing program is controversial. Critics have blasted EPA for exposing people to harmful pollutants, with one conservative group going as far as likening the tests to experiments conducted by Nazi doctors who intentionally poisoned, maimed and killed prisoners during World War II (Greenwire, Sept. 24, 2012).[find orig?]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But EPA researchers say the studies provide valuable data that help the agency set limits on harmful air emissions.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Recruits of various ages and demographics are brought into "study chambers" at EPA's Human Studies Facility at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where they're exposed to air pollutants like diesel exhaust, ozone or concentrated air particles from car exhaust. They can get paid from $50 to more than $1,000 for completing a study.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For another test, EPA is recruiting asthmatic African-American teenagers from Raleigh, N.C., to determine how airborne chemicals and dust affect asthma control. They'd get paid $594 for six weekly visits where they'd answer questions about their health and have their breathing, blood, temperature and heart rate tested. An adult who takes them to appointments would get a $35 gift card each week.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some EPA tests might involve doctors removing cell samples from participants' lungs by inserting a thin tube through their noses and throats, or subjects being asked to cough lung-coating mucus into a cup to help researchers understand the effects of pollutants.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The human testing program has a relatively small staff and budget within a big agency. Between 2009 and 2013, EPA spent about $3.5 million a year on human subjects research, according to a report released last year by the EPA inspector general. The program had about 20 full-time employees during that time.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Contractors hired by EPA enlist subjects in a variety of ways -- recruiting websites, university newspapers and social media.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In addition to getting cash, participants are told they'll be helping humanity.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Thanks to people like you who have participated in studies at the Human Studies Facility, the EPA has set air pollutant regulations that help improve the health of millions of individuals every year," the recruitment website says. "Your participation will help make the world a better and healthier place for us all."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA scientists say the program has been given a bad rap.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bob Kavlock</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA's deputy science chief, Bob Kavlock, said the effects of the tests can be compared to smoking. “If you smoked one cigarette in your lifetime, you would not have an elevated risk of lung cancer.”&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We do an extremely diligent job when we undertake this research," said Bob Kavlock, the deputy science chief in EPA's Office of Research and Development. "We really do take safety of the subjects with the utmost seriousness."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Would-be participants are screened before testing to make sure they're healthy enough to participate, according to EPA officials. They get detailed, written descriptions of the studies and orientations ahead of time to show them what the tests will involve. And there's a doctor on hand to monitor volunteers throughout the studies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"There are a series of ... safety protocols that one has to get through before one becomes even a candidate to participate in one of these research studies," said Toby Schonfeld, EPA's human subjects research review official. "Any condition or any situation that an individual might be in that the scientists are concerned might -- even in a small way -- endanger their health, they would not be invited to participate."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kavlock noted that the short-term exposures are equivalent to what people would experience if they lived in a city like Los Angeles for a day or two. "You can compare this a little bit to smoking," he said. "Smoking is bad, we know smoking is bad, we know smoking causes lung cancer. But if you smoked one cigarette in your lifetime, you would not have an elevated risk of lung cancer."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'Extremely disturbing'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But EPA's assurances haven't quelled criticism.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Landon Huffman was a University of North Carolina undergraduate studying sports administration in 2006 when he signed up for an air pollution test on campus. He saw an ad for the study in the college newspaper, and he was eager for the extra cash.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I was 18 years old and just interested in making a little extra money. It seemed like a relatively easy and safe thing to do," Huffman told Raleigh, N.C.-based news station WNCN a few years ago. He made $3,000 over a year for participating in the studies, he said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[EPA test chamber treadmills</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Some human studies involve exposing subjects to air pollution during exercise to test the effects. Photo]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But in 2012, he sued over the testing, arguing that he hadn't properly been informed about the potential health risks. Huffman was a party to a 2012 lawsuit filed by the American Tradition Institute, a free-market advocacy group. A federal court dismissed that lawsuit in 2013, saying those disputing the program lacked standing, meaning they did not prove they were harmed by the agency's decision (Greenwire, Feb. 1, 2013).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Critics also seized on the case of a 58-year-old woman who was sent to the hospital with heart arrhythmia after a test of the effects of inhaling particle pollution, although the symptoms went away after she left the chamber.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Researchers from EPA and the University of North Carolina published a paper on that test in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, saying it was the first-ever case report to show the long-suspected link between air pollution exposure and heart problems (Greenwire, May 15, 2012).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the controversy heated up in 2012, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), now chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, called the reports of EPA's tests "extremely disturbing" and urged further investigation into the claims made by critics (E&ENews PM, Oct. 1, 2012).</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And this year, critics lodged another protest. A pair of conservative organizations released 176 pages of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act that they said showed EPA had funded illegal experiments at independent institutions that subjected children to diesel exhaust in the name of science.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and the Energy and Environment Legal Institute said that the documents showed that the scientists had failed to adequately represent cancer risks to participants and their parents.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As part of a project conducted by scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California between 2003 and 2010 through their Center for Children's Health, researchers sprayed diesel exhaust in the noses of 20 children between 10 and 15 years old.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"EPA and its researchers have perverted science and morality in using children as guinea pigs in what amount to pseudoscientific experiments," CFACT Executive Director Craig Rucker said in a statement.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The lead researcher of the diesel research, David Diaz Sanchez, is now chief of the clinical research branch at EPA.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Research 'carefully reviewed and approved'</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Frank Gilliland, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California, called the groups' accusations about the project unfounded.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Gilliland was a recipient of the Center for Children's Health grant and conducted epidemiological studies of children in their communities across Southern California; he was not directly involved in the diesel part of the grant but is knowledgeable about the project.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA test chamber</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[pix? EPA exposes volunteers to air pollution concentrations in specialized chambers at its research center in North Carolina. Photo courtesy of EPA’s Office of Inspector General.]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Both parents and children had informed consent about the exposures to diesel and the potential for some small increase in cancer, Gilliland said, but that the risk was approximately equal to two days of exposure that children experience in polluted Los Angeles. All the research was "carefully reviewed and approved" by relevant committees tasked with reviewing human subjects research, he said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The attacks by conservative groups on EPA's human studies research program are part of a broader attempt to discredit the agency's science, Gilliland said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I think that their arguments are not science-based and that they're largely made to try to sway public opinion against the regulatory science that EPA needs to do and has done to be able to protect people's health," he said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA's human studies research hasn't been immune to criticism from environmental groups. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, environmental groups raised the alarm about EPA's use of industry-funded studies that exposed humans to pesticides. The agency, however, issued new regulations on the use of third-party pesticide studies in 2006 and an update in 2013 that's mostly quelled criticism in the area of pesticides research.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In its report released in March 2014, EPA's Office of the Inspector General examined the treatment of 81 human test subjects who were exposed to airborne particles and diesel exhaust in five experiments conducted between 2010 and 2011 and found that the agency had "followed applicable regulations."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the IG also said there were improvements that could be made "to enhance protection of study subjects."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although EPA obtained informed consent for all the experiments, the agency was inconsistent in the way it represented risk and did not include information on long-term cancer risks linked to diesel exhaust. The agency did not have well-established policies for following up with test subjects after the studies were over.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The IG's recommendations have since been carried out, according to the report.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">BPA cookies</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite the criticism against EPA for exposing humans to pollutants, using humans as test subjects is actually a common practice in medical and public health research.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"The idea that this is somehow unusual in medical research is not the case," Gilliland of the University of Southern California said. "Studies are routinely reviewed by the relevant human subjects protection groups, and people are informed of risk in terms that they can understand."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That's because it's difficult to tease out all the potential effects on the human body by doing tests of how animals react to environmental pollutants and other stressors, researchers say. And epidemiological experiments involving the observation of large samples of people can illuminate average effects and trends in human populations but do not provide information at the individual level.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Those experiments are not well-controlled, and they're sometimes hard to interpret," said David Resnik, a bioethicist and chairman of the institutional review board at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. "For instance, we had epidemiological data on smoking and lung cancer for years, but it still took a long time to tease out all the effects of cigarette smoke on the lungs just from doing epidemiology. It was still hard to pin that down."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA is not the only federal agency to participate in this type of research. According to Resnik, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in recent years has increased its human testing for environmental pollutants.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The institute, for example, has recently been studying how bisphenol A enters and circulates through the human body, Resnik said. In one controlled lab study, NIEHS researchers gave subjects cookies spread with a concentrated BPA solution. In another study, researchers put BPA on the subjects' skin. In both cases, the researchers measured how much BPA was excreted in the participants' urine.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NIEHS also has exposed humans to ozone-laden air and then run a variety of tests to determine how ozone pollution affects lung function, Resnik said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The institute actually used to conduct human subjects studies at EPA's laboratory in North Carolina before it had the proper facilities for performing bronchoscopies, or tests that involve sticking a tube down a person's nose and into the nasal cavity and trachea to get samples of lung tissue.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Resnik said that NIEHS has not been subjected to the same type of backlash that EPA has received.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We haven't had that criticism that I'm aware of," he said about the public reception of the institute's studies. "But we're definitely aware that people may have this feeling, and that's why we want to make sure that the study is reviewed carefully for the science and the ethics to make sure that people are being treated well."</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Twitter: @apeterka | Email: apeterka@eenews.net</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">holocaust BS :</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://eelegal.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/2012-09-21-Complaint-as-Filed.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sept 2012?]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://www.linkedin.com/in/landon-t-huffman-ph-d-a8883251</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">cv xian: https://landonhuffman.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/landon-huffman-cv-website.pdf</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ALEXANDRIA DIVISION</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">THE AMERICAN TRADITION INSTITUTE</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ENVIRONMENTAL LAW CENTER</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;0033 Brook Ford Rd.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Burke, VA 22015</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Plaintiffs,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;v.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">PROTECTION AGENCY, and</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LISA P. JACKSON, ADMINISTRATOR</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;1200 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Washington, DC 20460,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Defendants.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Civil Action No. _</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">VERIFIED COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I. Nature of the Action</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1. On behalf of its members, the American Tradition Institute (ATI), by and through</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">counsel, brings this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2201and the Administrative Procedure Act</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">(“APA”), 5 U.S.C. Part I, Chapter 7, et seq, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency). Pursuant to 5 U.S.C.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">§ 702, ATI also files against EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2. Plaintiffs ask the Court to find EPA failed to comply with laws controlling human</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">experimentation and to order the Agency to fully comply. Specifically, through a companion</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">filing Plaintiffs will seek a Temporary Restraining Order and through this filing seeks a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Preliminary Injunction to immediately halt EPA’s human experimentation which intentionally&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Verified Complaint 2p]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">exposes human subjects, including some “more susceptible to the effects of air pollutants” to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“fine particles” such as those “produced by car and coal-fired power plants”, that EPA and its</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Administrator have described as “lethal” and for which EPA has concluded there is no exposure</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">level “below which there is no risk at all.”&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Second, Plaintiffs seek declaratory relief finding EPA</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">has failed to adequately inform project participants that the pollution they will inhale imposes a</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">risk to their health and that there is no benefit whatever to the participants of the study, as well as</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">other violations of controlling laws, regulations and policies as described below. Third,</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Plaintiffs seek injunctive relief barring any human experimentation by EPA absent an</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">independent determination that the Agency is in full compliance with human experimentation</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">laws, regulations and policies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Fourth, Plaintiffs seek injunctive relief requiring EPA to</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">withdraw and destroy or excise any publications in any form that are based, even in part, on</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">results of illegal human experimentation.&nbsp;</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Lastly, Plaintiffs seek a stay in implementation of any</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">rules authorized under the Clean Air Act to control fine particulate matter until such time as the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Agency can review the regulatory basis it used in their promulgation, amend its support</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">documents and otherwise reevaluate the risks from fine particulate matter to ensure EPA does</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">not rely in any fashion upon illegal human experimentation.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">II. Parties</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A. Plaintiffs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3. The American Tradition Institute is a 501(c) (3) organization dedicated to the</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">advancement of rational, free-market solutions to America's land, energy, and environmental</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">challenges. It has members throughout the nation, including in Virginia. The Institute and its</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Law Center were formed to find and challenge at law governmental actions that violate the core</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">principles of good science, honest government and the rights of citizens and man. See, Schnare ...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">milloy junk sci guest posts/ john1282</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Documents contradict EPA claim that it stopped diesel fume tests on kids January 29</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">US Environmental Protection Agency tested diesel fumes on children January 23</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA experiments on children, hides dangers of inhaling diesel fumes January 22</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Report: EPA Tested Deadly Air Pollutants On Children January 20</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA Used 10-Year Old Children in Illegal Diesel Exhaust Experiments January 20</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2014</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Obama EPA’s Heinous Human Experiments (FrontPageMag) April 4</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is how EPA finds people for its pollution exposure experiments (Breitbart) April 4</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Report: EPA fails to disclose risks in human tests (WNCN-TV) April 3</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA Conducted Air Pollution Experiments on Children (Breitbart.com) April 2</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Report: EPA did not properly disclose pollutant risks to study participants (The Hill) April 2</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Senate EPW: New IG Report on Human Testing Highlights Further Need for Transparency at EPA April 2</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">House Science Committee: EPA Conducted Experiments on Humans with Cancer-Causing and Lethal Pollutants April 2</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Report: EPA tested deadly pollutants on humans to push Obama admin’s agenda (Daily Caller) April 2</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Inspector General Report on Illegal EPA Human ExperimentsMarch 31</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bill Prohibits EPA from Using Secret Science February 6</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Study: ‘No Statistical Correlation’ Between Fine Airborne Particles, Premature Death January 8</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2013</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA air pollution scare debunked by best data set ever assembled on particulate matter and deaths December 26</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EPA administrator grilled by House Science Committee about illegal human testing November 14</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Michigan medical board refuses to investigate doc who admits to unsafe EPA human experiments October 14</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">bb bs</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2014/04/03/this-is-how-the-epa-finds-people-for-pollution-exposure-experiments/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This Is How the EPA Finds People for Pollution Exposure Experiments</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This Is How the EPA Finds People for Pollution Exposure Experiments</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">by KERRY PICKET 3 Apr 2014 215</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Are you over weight and out of shape?” asked one ad.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is seeking Older Adults With Asthma,” said another.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The federal government wasn’t selling diet pills, and it wasn’t seeking victims for a class action suit – it was soliciting human subjects for experiments that would expose them to air pollution.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA is under fire this week after an Inspector General investigation found the agency exposed people to harmful chemicals without adequately disclosing the risks involved.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, told Breitbart News on Thursday he found the IG’s report “disturbing.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Finding volunteers to participate in Environmental Protection Agency experiments is often tasked to contractors like FEFA LLC who place ads in Newspapers, around communities, and online. These ads use money lures to find individuals within specific demographics to partake in EPA studies.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Flyers calling for adult volunteers between the ages of 35 and 55 to engage in a pollution study who have metabolic syndrome. The research takes place at the Human Studies Division at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, the same facility the EPA Inspector General released a critical report on.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The paper advertiser for the EPA study asks that male volunteers should have waist sizes greater than 40? and waist sizes for females should be more than 35? or at least a Body Mass Index greater than 30.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another flyer for the same experiment asks, “Are you over weight and out of shape?” This particular study involves 25 hours of 3 screening visits and 4 study visits. Volunteers are told they will be compensated for their time.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another flyer asking for adult participants between the ages of 50 and 75 at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, advertises an EPA study about genetics, diet supplementation and exposure to air pollution. This particular advertisement states the total commitment to the experiment is 15 hours over a 6 to 7 week period and volunteers will be paid.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A similar ad at UNC-CH asks for non-smoking adults between 45 and 65 but with mild asthma. This pollution experiment is said to examine genetics and “requires screening and two exposures with follow up bronchoscopy.” The EPA studies website describes a bronchoscopy as a way to get a lung cell sample:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During the procedure, a doctor passes a thin tube through your nose and throat into the airways. Cells are removed either by a squirt of salt water or a gentle brushing. Before inserting the tube, the doctor will give you anesthetic to numb your nose and throat. You will get an intravenous (IV) line placed in your vein in case you need medications or fluids. After the procedure, nurses will monitor your heart rate and blood pressure. The bronchoscopy itself usually lasts about 30 minutes. But the entire procedure, including preparation and recovery time, takes about 4 hours.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA also broadcasts their pitches for volunteers on the radio. The pitch goes like this:</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Are your triglycerides, cholesterol, blood sugar or blood pressure a little too high? Is your waist bigger than 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women? If you can answer yes to any of those, you could be one of 40 million Americans who might be especially sensitive to air pollutants. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is seeking volunteers like you, ages 19 to 55, to participate in research about air pollution. Those who complete the entire study may be paid as much as $1200. To find out more, call…”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The flyers and radio ads direct those who are interested to a phone number and web site: epastudies.org. The website has information where individuals can sign up or “refer a friend.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2014/04/02/epa-conducted-pollution-experiments-on-children/</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;Environmental Protection Agency is under fire for exposing children to pollution as part of an experiment at the University of Southern California.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This information is coming to light from the website junkscience.com after an investigation from the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General stated in a recent report that the EPA’s pollution experiments on older people, done at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, were more harmful to the subjects than what the EPA presented.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The IG also said that while the experiment’s subjects did consent to exposure, the “risks were not always consistently represented.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Further, the EPA did not include information on long-term cancer risks in its diesel exhaust studies’ consent forms. An EPA manager considered these long-term risks minimal for short-term study exposures,” the IG report said.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In February of 2013, JunkScience.com reported that the EPA gave USC money in the mid 2000’s to find out whether diesel exhaust could “induce reproducible gene expression” in children. From a USC grant in the EPA extramural research grants database, the original December 14, 2012 document showed diesel exposures to children. What now sits on that database is a strongly edited description of the diesel tests on the children. Part of the the experiment’s goal was to examine how particulate matter affects “Asthma in Susceptible Children.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Junk Science made a Freedom of Information Act request to the EPA to explain the deletion and alteration of its database of the documentation regarding diesel experiments on children. The EPA’s response to JunkScience was that the deletion was due to a technical mishap.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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