Data Quality Act DQA

<p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">capt 616 bak 819</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see dereg</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">see tozzi</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">lamar smith</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">man bk says used by ceq and cei to quash nat assessment p 110, resisted by Joe Lieberman?. &nbsp;Cooney edits; EPA State of Env coney deleted hockey stick and related?&nbsp;</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">TOZZI masterminded, 2 sentences</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2001</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">roots:</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" line-height="line-height" normal="normal" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">President Bush’s first OIRA head, John Graham,</span>&nbsp;
invited corporate special interests to create a list of&nbsp;
76 regulatory protections they wanted weakened or&nbsp;
eliminated.</span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" line-height="line-height" normal="normal" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">&nbsp;</span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sound sci ~ junk sci --> secret sci:</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">According to Chris Mooney in his book,&nbsp;The Republican War on Science,<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Sound_science#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[1]</a></sup>&nbsp;"sound science", especially in conjunction with the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Data_Quality_Act" title="Data Quality Act" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Data Quality Act</a>, often means "requiring a higher burden of proof before action can be taken to protect public health and the environment.</span>"&nbsp;</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>He also states that, "the sound science movement also confuses the quality of scientific analysis with the degree of scientific certainty that has been achieved on a given question" and manufactures uncertainty by "relying on scientific outliers to sow doubt about mainstream findings"</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a 2002 memo to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=President_George_W.Bush&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="President George W. Bush (page does not exist)" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">President George W. Bush</a>&nbsp;titled "The Environment: A Cleaner, Safer, Healthier America", obtained by the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Environmental_Working_Group" title="Environmental Working Group" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">Environmental Working Group</a>,<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Sound_science#cite_note-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[2]</a></sup>&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">conservative political consultant&nbsp;<b><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Frank_Luntz" title="Frank Luntz" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Frank Luntz</a>, said "sound science"</b>&nbsp;arguments provide "a window of opportunity to challenge the science." and he has urged politicians to "be even more active in recruiting experts who are sympathetic to your view."&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In other words sound science advocates are not interested in "good science", objectivity, or even "sound" science practices, but in politicizing science to support a specific viewpoint, often relying on testimonials from their own hired, special interest "experts."</span></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The intended result is often to delay or prevent government regulation....</b></font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">used by kazman and chris h to beat up ctw on climate 2002</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">claims win but dismissed with prej? see nat asess</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://cei.org/outreach-regulatory-comments-and-testimony/ceis-petition-against-further-dissemination-epas-climate-">http://cei.org/outreach-regulatory-comments-and-testimony/ceis-petition-against-further-dissemination-epas-climate-</a></font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">LAMAR SMITH UPDATE</font></span></p><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/25<b>/secret-science</b>-epa_n_5529521.html</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div style=""><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><span style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">[This is the second in a three-part series. Read the first story&nbsp;<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/24/house-science-committee_n_5525609.html?1403707503" target="hplink" data-beacon="{" p="p" mnid="mnid" entry_text="entry_text" lnid="lnid" citation="citation" mpid="mpid" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(46, 112, 97); outline: none; box-sizing: inherit;">here</a>.</font></span></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The conservative “secret science” campaign harkens back nearly twenty years.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In late 1996, industry was trying to fight the Environmental Protection Agency’s first efforts to<b>&nbsp;set a fine particle pollution air quality standard of “PM2.5,” the abbreviation used for particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter.</b></font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), an astroturf lobbying group founded by the petrochemical industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch in 1984, warned that the “effects of the new air quality standards on the economy would be devastating,</b>” based in part on economic analyses conducted by the Center for Study of Public Choice at George Mason University – a group also funded by the Koch brothers. The CSE co-founder and president was Koch Industries vice president Rich Fink, a George Mason economist who has sat on the board of the school’s public choice center.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CSE, the precursor to the Tea Party groups FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, was then led by&nbsp;<b>C. Boyden Gray,</b>&nbsp;an heir to the Reynolds tobacco fortune and GOP kingmaker. In addition to running the tobacco-and-polluter-funded “grassroots” CSE, Gray also managed the Orwellian-sounding “Air Quality Standards Coalition,” an industry coalition coordinated by the National Association of Manufacturers to fight EPA limits on soot and smog pollution.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As industry was not getting much traction with the “it’s going to cost too much” argument, Gray’s group employed street theater as a political tactic.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In January 1997, attendees of a Senate hearing on the proposed EPA rules encountered a group of people wearing white lab coats holding signs saying, “Harvard, release the data!” The supposed scientists in fact came from CSE</b>. In addition, CSE took out ads in the Chicago Tribune attacking the Harvard brand, and writers in the libertarian-industrial network questioned the legitimacy of the studies and demanded the release of the private medical records at their core.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The unwillingness of the study’s authors to allow access to basic data is troubling; such secrecy is incompatible with the modern scientific process,” complained a CSE publication in June 1997.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CSE also found an ideological hook for the economic-damage attacks, spinning pollution limits as an assault on freedom. “Imagine that – a new government regulation that takes away our freedom to celebrate our freedom,” said a CSE radio advertisement in the summer of 1997. The ad claimed that the proposed air pollution regulations would&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ruin Independence Day by outlawing barbecues, lawn mowers, and fireworks.</span></font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The outcome of the campaign was threefold: a weakening and delay of&nbsp;<b>ozone</b>&nbsp;and particulate-matter rules; a $50 million taxpayer-funded project to reconfirm the results; and legislation compelling that the data generated by federally funded research be made available to industry and the public.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fast forward to last year.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“The data in question have not been subjected to scrutiny and analysis by independent scientists,” Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) charged in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed.</b></font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Yet Smith’s claim that the studies and the underlying patient data did not undergo independent analysis is false. In fact, in 1997, while Smith was serving his sixth term, Congress appropriated $49.6 million for a major research program into fine particulate matter, including a reanalysis of the Harvard and ACS studies by the Health Effects Institute. Smith voted for the bill.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“When we got the medical records from Harvard, I personally signed a confidentiality agreement, as did the investigators at University of Ottawa. The data was conveyed to a locked room with limited access,” said Health Effects Institute president Dan Greenbaum in an interview.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In 2000, the group issued a 297-page report entitled “Reanalysis of the Harvard Six Cities Study and the American Cancer Society Study of Particulate Air Pollution and Mortality.”</b>&nbsp;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.”</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>In short, the HEI assessment confirmed the studies’ results.</b> So did a separate HEI analysis of public records from 90 cities known as the National Morbidity, Mortality, and Air Pollution Study.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A charitable interpretation is that this multi-year, multi-million-dollar taxpayer effort advanced epidemiological methodologies. Others might say that polluters knowingly gamed the system by unfairly casting doubt on well-founded science.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><strong style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Shelby Amendment</font></strong></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Following these EPA battles, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) drafted the&nbsp;<b>Data Access Act</b>, better known as the <b>Shelby Amendment, in response to his inability to get the underlying medical records from the Harvard Six Cities and American Cancer Society studies.</b></font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Shelby amendment mandated that “all data produced under a [federally funded] award will be made available to the public through the procedures established under the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA].” The <b style="">Office of Management and Budget</b> drafted rules to implement the Shelby amendment that limited the scope to research “used in developing an agency action that has the force and effect of law” and carved out exceptions for confidential data.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Efforts to repeal the Shelby amendment in 1999 led tobacco and oil industry consultant </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Steve Milloy to coin the term “secret science.”</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;In February, Milloy launched the “Stop Secret Science” sweepstakes, offering a Wall Street Journal subscription to people who sent a comment to OMB on the “secret science” rule. Soon, the Washington Times and the New York Post published “secret science” editorials, and an oil executive attacked the “secret science” of the EPA rules. But the term failed to catch on, perhaps because most politicians couldn’t claim with a straight face that confidential medical records should be made public on industry’s behalf.</span></font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Shelby amendment had little actual impact on the Harvard and ACS studies. The ACS data is not funded by federal or public dollars, and is not subject to the Data Access Act. Essentially all of the non-confidential records and data from the Harvard Six Cities research has been made public, a process that was underway before the passage of the amendment.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Whatever the intent, the Shelby amendment marked an <u>important shift in the balance of power between industry and the public, </u>as corporate researchers could get access to federally funded work without any expectation of a quid pro quo.</b></font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><strong style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Forcing a Document Release</font></strong></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Fifteen years later, Rep. Lamar Smith was ready to go further.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After two years of fishing expeditions begun during Ralph Hall’s chairmanship, Smith was fed up with the idea that the federal government wouldn’t –- or couldn’t –- force Harvard and the American Cancer Society to turn over private medical records to his committee.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“If the administration does not provide this data by the end of July, the science committee will force its release through a subpoena,” he warned.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b style="">Although the EPA complied with Smith’s previous demands</b>, turning over all of the records under its control, Smith pushed the subpoena forward.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> On Aug. 1 of last year, the&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">committee authorized subpoenas against the EPA, Harvard University, and the American Cancer Society on a party-line vote. That day, Smith issued a subpoena to the EPA.</b></font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A month later, Smith expressed his anger at the EPA’s limited response, challenging the agency to force Harvard and the cancer society to turn over the medical records so that his Committee can “analyze the health effects of exposure to certain air pollutants.”</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">In a Sept. 3 letter to EPA administrator </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Gina McCarthy</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, Smith claimed that the OMB’s implementation of the Shelby amendment means the EPA’s power to compel private institutions to turn over records is without limit, no matter what confidentiality agreements exist between the researchers and their subjects, or between the government and the researchers.</span></b></font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A March 2013 Congressional Research Service report on the Shelby amendment notes that its scope “excludes personal and business-related confidential data.”</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">When Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) asked Smith who he wanted to pass along the research data to, he said, “Dr. James </b><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Enstrom</b><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">.”</b></font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It turns out that Mr. Smith’s preferred expert for more than two decades has been closely connected to the American tobacco industry, reviled for its promotion of deceptive marketing and faux-science.</font></p></div><div class="content-list-component mt-paragraph text" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; max-width: 730px; min-width: initial; width: 630px; line-height: 1.5em; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><strong style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">‘I Understand Science Better’</font></strong></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 20px; box-sizing: inherit; padding: 0px; line-height: 27px;"><strong style="box-sizing: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></strong></p></div></div><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></span></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Harper's Magazine</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">June 1, 2003 | Urstadt, Bryant |</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Where can a corporate lobbyist hide thirty-two lines of stealth legislation? Right here, between a land transfer to the Gerald R. Ford Foundation and some details about cost-of-living allowances at the Office of Personnel Management, on<b style=""> pages 153 and 154 of the 712-page federal budget for the year 2001. </b>Christened the "Data Quality Act</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"--one of the many euphemisms employed by the law's supporters--Section 515 presents itself as an innocuous call for federal agencies to improve the accuracy of their data. But the act, which became effective in October 2002, is in fact designed to encumber those agencies and, over time, to hamper their ability to regulate. Passed with no debate and with little public scrutiny, the law is intended not to improve data but, through constant contention, to suppress it.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Although technically an extension of the Paperwork Reduction Act, the Data Quality Act forces regulatory agencies to produce reams of extra paperwork. </b>…</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-103124297.html</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">uc</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><p class="body-paragraph" data-auto="body_paragraph" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1.2em; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 16.8px; text-align: justify; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;" xmlns:translation="urn:EBSCO-Translation"><span style="background-color: transparent;">Where can a corporate lobbyist hide thirty-two lines of stealth legislation? Right here, between a land transfer to the G</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">erald R. Ford Foundation and some details about cost-of-living allowances at the Office of Personnel Management, on pages 153 and 154</span> of the 712-page federal budget for the year 2001. Christened the "Data Quality&nbsp;<strong data-auto="strong_text" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Act</strong>"--<strong data-auto="strong_text" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">one</strong>&nbsp;of the many euphemisms employed by the law's supporters--Section 515 presents itself as an innocuous call for federal agencies to improve the accuracy of their data. But the&nbsp;<strong data-auto="strong_text" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">act</strong>, which became effective in October 2002, is in fact designed to encumber those agencies and, over time, to hamper their ability to regulate. <b>Passed with no debate and with little public scrutiny, the law is intended not to improve data but, through constant contention, to suppress it.</b></p><p class="body-paragraph" data-auto="body_paragraph" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1.2em; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 16.8px; text-align: justify; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;" xmlns:translation="urn:EBSCO-Translation"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Although technically an extension of the Paperwork Reduction&nbsp;<strong data-auto="strong_text" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Act</strong>, the Data Quality&nbsp;<strong data-auto="strong_text" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">Act</strong>&nbsp;forces regulatory agencies to produce reams of extra paperwork.</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> The&nbsp;<strong data-auto="strong_text" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">act</strong>&nbsp;required that the Office of Management and Budget issue guidelines "ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information... disseminated by Federal agencies." </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">When the OMB released these guidelines in February 2002, they consumed some 10,000 words and included definitions of the terms at issue.</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"><b> (Philosophers may be interested to know that "quality" now is officially "an encompassing term comprising utility, objectivity, and integrity.")</b> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">By October 2002 the individual agencies were required to produce their own guidelines and, more important, to establish "administrative mechanisms" to respond to, keep track of, and deliver reports on any complaints concerning the objectivity, utility, and integrity of their data. If disputed information is found to be out of compliance with these vague requirements, it may now be struck from government use.</span></p><p class="body-paragraph" data-auto="body_paragraph" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1.2em; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 16.8px; text-align: justify; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;" xmlns:translation="urn:EBSCO-Translation"><span style="background-color: transparent;">Who would conceive of such a thing? As the only person listed in the&nbsp;<strong data-auto="strong_text" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">act</strong>, the<b> director of the OMB--Mitch Daniels Jr.,</b> previously a senior vice president at pharmaceutical giant </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Eli Lilly</span>--would be a natural guess, but an inaccurate&nbsp;<strong data-auto="strong_text" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">one</strong>. Nominally, the&nbsp;<strong data-auto="strong_text" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">act's</strong>&nbsp;sponsoring representative was <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Jo Ann Emerson, Republican of Missouri, a former lobbyist who gained her seat in 1996 after the death of her husband, eight-term congressman Bill Emerson, from lung cancer</span>. But in reality, the&nbsp;<strong data-auto="strong_text" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-color: transparent; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">act</strong>&nbsp;was written by Jim Tozzi, a current lobbyist whose clients include such corporate citizens as Philip Morris, Bridgestone/Firestone, and Synagro Technologies, a leading disposer of sewage sludge. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For Tozzi, the&nbsp;<strong data-auto="strong_text" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">act</strong>&nbsp;is the opening salvo of his latest venture, the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness, a for-profit lobbying group whose actual purpose is to render regulations ineffective.</span></p><p class="body-paragraph" data-auto="body_paragraph" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1.2em; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 16.8px; text-align: justify; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;" xmlns:translation="urn:EBSCO-Translation"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For data to be "objective" under the OMB's definition, independent scientists should agree on its validity. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In practice, this offers limitless opportunity for complaint, because a friendly scientist can always be found to dispute an inconvenient finding. The </span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Competitive Enterprise Institute,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">for example, has filed a petition under the&nbsp;<strong data-auto="strong_text" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">act</strong>&nbsp;demanding that all references to the National Assessment on Climate Change, which affirmed the existence of global warming, be expunged.</span></p><p class="body-paragraph" data-auto="body_paragraph" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1.2em; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 16.8px; text-align: justify; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;" xmlns:translation="urn:EBSCO-Translation"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;The <b>CEI's filing leans heavily on Patrick Michaels</b>, </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">a scientist who has argued for years against global warming on behalf of corporations, most recently through the "Greening Earth Society," which is funded by the coal industry. Jim Tozzi himself has used the&nbsp;<strong data-auto="strong_text" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background: transparent;">act</strong>&nbsp;to demand that the EPA rescind statements about the reproductive effects of <b>atrazine,</b> an herbicide made by his client Syngenta. Tozzi's filing draws on studies paid for by Syngenta and peer-reviewed by a group called </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>EcoRisk,</b> which was founded, according to its website, "with the encouragement [sic] and support of various... private chemical corporations." EcoRisk deems the EPA's data irreproducible.</span></p><p class="body-paragraph" data-auto="body_paragraph" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1.2em; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 16.8px; text-align: justify; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;" xmlns:translation="urn:EBSCO-Translation"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The agencies will report to </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">John D. Graham,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> the administrator of the OMB's information and regulation division. Previously, Graham was the founding director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis,</span><span style="background-color: transparent;"> the bulk of whose funding comes not from Harvard but from more than 100 corporations. The</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> center's "risk analysis" is chiefly economic, </span><span style="background-color: transparent;">and with few exceptions it has argued that the risks posed by corporate products or pollution are outweighed by the evils of regulation. For example, in 2000, after <b>AT&T Wireless gave $300,000 to study the dangers of handheld cell-phone use while driving</b>, the center found that no regulations were warranted</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. In elaborating on the OMB's guidelines, Graham has demanded special scrutiny for "influential" data--i.e., data that might prompt regulation--and has noted that <b><font color="#ff0000">even peer review by a scientific journal may not be sufficient to prove quality.</font></b></span></p><p class="body-paragraph" data-auto="body_paragraph" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1.2em; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 16.8px; text-align: justify; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;" xmlns:translation="urn:EBSCO-Translation">Finally conservatives and corporate lobbyists have found a bureaucracy they like. With the law in effect, its author,<b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> Jim Tozzi</b>, now can devote himself to filing complaints under it. Beyond his attack on the EPA's atrazine study, he has also come to the aid of <b style="background-color: transparent;">Bridgestone/Firestone, </b>Goodyear, and the Rubber Manufacturers Association against the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration, which is planning to distribute information about tire defects.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> In his petition, Tozzi demands predissemination review by the manufacturers themselves</span>--perhaps this is "integrity"--and argues, under the "utility" clause, that NHTSA must actually prove that releasing data about unsafe tires is useful.<b style="background-color: transparent;"> The end result: more paperwork, less information, weaker controls on manufacturers, and fewer safeguards for the public. This, to corporations, is "quality" legislation.</b></p></div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2x see below, nice wapo overview:</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><b style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Atrazine&nbsp;</font></b></p><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Rick Weiss</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Washington Post Staff Writer</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Monday,&nbsp;<b>August 16, 2004</b>; Page A01</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Second of three articles</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="font-weight: inherit;">Things were not looking good a few years ago for the makers of</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font color="#ff0000" style=""><span style="font-weight: inherit;">&nbsp;</span><b>atrazine,</b></font><b>&nbsp;</b><span style="font-weight: inherit;">America's second-leading weedkiller.</span></span><span style="font-weight: inherit;">&nbsp;The company was seeking approval from the Environmental Protection Agency to keep the highly profitable product on the market. But scientists were finding it was disrupting hormones in wildlife -- in some cases turning frogs into bizarre creatures bearing both male and female sex organs.</span></font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last October, concerns about the herbicide led the European Union to ban atrazine, starting in 2005. Yet that same month, after 10 years of contentious scientific review, the EPA decided to permit ongoing use in the United States with no new restrictions.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[An Agency Takes a Turn</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under President Bush, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has made sometimes subtle changes in regulations that carry large consequences for workers and employers.&nbsp;<b>Across the government, the Bush administration has started fewer regulations and killed more of the proposals Bush inherited than two predecessors.&nbsp;</b>TB]</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font color="#ff0000" style=""><span style="font-weight: inherit;">A last-minute addition to an unrelated piece of legislation has created a tool for attacking the science used by federal agencies as a basis for new regulations. Industry has embraced the&nbsp;</span><b>Data Quality Act&nbsp;</b><span style="font-weight: inherit;">to challenge 32 major proposals</span></font><span style="font-weight: inherit;">, including a successful assault on efforts to restrict the use of the herbicide&nbsp;</span><b style="font-weight: inherit;">atrazine.</b></font></font></font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Herbicide approvals are complicated, and there is no one reason that atrazine passed regulatory muster in this country. But close observers give significant credit to a single sentence that was added to the EPA's final scientific assessment last year.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">, it read, cannot be considered a "legitimate regulatory endpoint at this time" -- that is, it is not an acceptable reason to restrict a chemical's use -- because the...</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Those words, which effectively rendered moot hundreds of pages of scientific evidence, were adopted by the EPA as a result of a petition filed by a Washington consultant working with atrazine's primary manufacturer, Syngenta Crop Protection.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;</span><font color="#ff0000"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The petition was filed under the Data Quality Act</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,</span></font><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;a little-known piece of legislation that, under President Bush's Office of Management and Budget, has become a potent tool for companies seeking to beat back regulation.</span></font></font></font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Data Quality Act -- written by an industry lobbyist and&nbsp;<font color="#ff0000">slipped into a giant appropriations bill in 2000 without congressional discussion or debate&nbsp;</font>-- is just&nbsp;<b>two sentences directing the OMB to ensure that all information disseminated by the federal government is reliable</b>. But the Bush administration's interpretation of those two sentences could tip the balance in regulatory disputes that weigh the interests of consumers and businesses.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font color="#ff0000"><b>John D. Graham,</b>&nbsp;administrator of the OMB Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)<b>,</b></font><b>&nbsp;who has directed implementation of the Data Quality Act, said the law will keep the federal government hewing to "sound science.</b>" He said the act,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;which allows people and companies to challenge government information they believe is inaccurate, is equally accessible to "a wide diversity of interests, both in the business community and in the consumer, environmental and conservation communities."</span></font></font></font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font color="#ff0000" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But many consumers, conservationists and worker advocates say the act is inherently biased in favor of industry</span>. By demanding that government use only data that have achieved a rare level of certainty, these critics maintain, the act dismisses scientific information that in the past would have triggered tighter regulation.</font></font></font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A Washington Post analysis of government records indicates that in the first 20 months since the act was fully implemented, it has been used predominantly by industry.</b>&nbsp;Setting aside the many Data Quality Act petitions filed to correct narrow typographical or factual errors in government publications or Web sites, the&nbsp;<b>analysis found 39 petitions with potentially broad economic, policy or regulatory impact. Of those, 32 were filed by regulated industries, business or trade organizations or their lobbyists. Seven were filed by environmental or citizen groups. Some environmental groups are boycotting the act, adding to the imbalance in its use.</b></font></font></font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Among the petitions:</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">•&nbsp;</span><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">American Chemistry Council</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;and others challenged data used by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) as it sought to ban wood treated with</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;heavy metals and arsenic in playground equipment</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.[see appendiz, acsh?]</span></b></font></font></font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">•&nbsp;<b>Logging</b>&nbsp;groups challenged Forest Service calculations used to justify restrictions on timber harvests.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">•&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Sugar</span>&nbsp;interests challenged the Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration over dietary recommendations to limit sugar intake.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">• The&nbsp;<font color="#ff0000">Salt Institute</font>&nbsp;and the U.S.&nbsp;<b>Chamber of Commerce&nbsp;</b>challenged data that led the National Institutes of Health to recommend that people cut back on salt.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">• The Nickel Development Institute and other nickel interests challenged a government report on the hazards of that metal.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">• The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers petitioned the CPSC to retract data that ranked the risk of lint fires in various clothes dryers.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Environmental and consumer groups say the Data Quality Act fits into a larger Bush administration agenda. In the past six months, more than<b>&nbsp;4,000 scientists, including dozens of Nobel laureates and 11 winners of the National Medal of Science, have signed statements accusing the administration of politicizing science.</b></font></span></font></font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The White House's heavy editing of a key global-warming report, its efforts to emphasize abstinence rather than condoms in the war against AIDS and its alleged stacking of scientific advisory committees have drawn particular ire. But many scientists and public advocates believe that far more is at stake with the Data Quality Act.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font color="#ff0000" size="4" face="Times New Roman">From their perspective, the act is shifting the authority over the nation's science into the politicized environment of the OMB -- a change, they say, that will favor big business.</font></font></font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>'Data Quality' Law Is Nemesis Of Regulation</b></font></font></font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"It's a tool to clobber every effort to regulate," said Rena Steinzor, a professor of law and director of the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Maryland. "In my view, it amounts to censorship and harassment.</span>"</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That's a view that Christopher C.&nbsp;</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Horner&nbsp;</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">of the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute -- which has used the act repeatedly to challenge scientific information -- brushed off as "whiny."</span></font></font></font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">--</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Hey, you're making me be accurate," he mocked. "I have no sympathy for that."</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Horner said the act, if anything, has proved less useful than anticipated to groups such as his that seek to minimize government regulation. And figures from the OMB confirm that agencies have in many cases resisted challenges to their scientific findings.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Of the 39 Data Quality Act petitions in The Post's analysis, five have resulted in at least some of the changes sought -- all of them filed by industry interests. Five were denied, five were diverted by the agencies to other bureaucratic avenues, and&nbsp;</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet there are signs, Graham acknowledged, that</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: inherit; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Studying Atrazine&nbsp;</b></font></font></font></div><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><font size="4"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman">murray coal<a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/06/12/coal-ceo-epa-global-warming/">&nbsp;</a></font></span><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;"><a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/06/12/coal-ceo-epa-global-warming/">http://ecowatch.com/2014/06/12/coal-ceo-epa-global-warming/</a>&nbsp; 7/14</span></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
<span style="line-height: 19.200000762939453px;" /></font></p><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Coal executive Robert E. Murray</span> wants to sue the EPA. for lying about AGW</font></b><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The newest innovation of the <a href="http://ecowatch.com/?s=climate%20denial" target="_blank">climate denying machine</a>, it turns out, is the lawsuit.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite the fact that President Barack Obama’s <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/06/02/obama-epa-carbon-climate-change/" target="blank">emissions rule</a> remains a proposal for at least a year, the mere idea of a limit on carbon has incensed an Ohio <a href="http://ecowatch.com/news/energy-news/coal-mining-pollution/" target="blank">coal </a>executive

to the point of threatened litigation.&nbsp;Robert E. Murray, founder of

Murray Energy Corp., said he would sue the U.S. Environmental Protection

Agency for spreading what he believes to be misinformation and

attempting to enforce legislation based on it—<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">violations of the federal

Data Quality Act in Murray’s view.</span></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Under the act, they are obligated to tell the truth, and they are

not telling the truth about global warming,” Murray said of the EPA in

an interview with <a href="http://www.wvexecutive.com/last-man-standing-bob-murray-war-coal/" target="_blank"><em>West Virginia Executive</em></a>. “They are not telling hardly any truth about the science.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“The earth has actually cooled over the last 17 years, so under the

Data Quality Act, they’ve actually been lying about so-called global

warming,</b>” he continued. “This lawsuit will force them to not just take

data from the environmentalists and publish it, as they have been doing,

but to review that data and make sure it’s accurate.”</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Clearly, the EPA doesn’t “just take” data from environmentalists. If

that were the case, a project like Keystone XL would have been nixed a

while ago. Instead, the agency considers information like the study of

nearly 12,000 abstracts concluding with <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2013/05/16/97-percent-scientists-agree-climate-change-man-made/" target="_blank">97 percent of scientists</a> agreeing that climate change is manmade.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As for Murray’s cooling argument, NASA has released plenty of data stating the opposite, including <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/01/30/nasa-shows-pace-of-global-warming-15-seconds/" target="blank">this animation</a> showing the intense warming of the planet over the past 60 decades. NASA also predicts that the planet <a href="http://ecowatch.com/2014/03/18/nasa-earth-warm-20-percent/" target="blank">could warm by 20 percent more</a> than previously estimated by 2099.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That won’t change Murray’s mind, though. He is concerned with the

“destruction” of the coal industry that the emissions limit will cause.

He says it’s a “human” issue, but he doesn’t give that distinction to

the greenhouse gas pollution caused by the same industry.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">==</font></span>

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;russo 2001</font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/13296/title/Debating-Shelby/">http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/13296/title/Debating-Shelby/</a></font></span></p><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em;"><a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/13296/title/Debating-Shelby/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></a></p><div class="articleHeader">

<h2 itemprop="name"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Debating Shelby</font></h2>

<p class="summary" itemprop="description"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sentiments expressed at a

March 12 National Academy of Sciences workshop suggest that scientists

and policy-makers remain very concerned about data access issues related

to the now infamous Shelby Amendment. The amendment, a two-line

provision added by Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) to an omnibus

appropriations law for fiscal year 1999, subjects federally funded

scientific research to requests for data made under the Freedom of

Information Act (FOIA).1 Its inclusion sparked a debate between indust</font>

    <font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="authors">By <span itemprop="author">Eugene Russo</span></span>  | <span class="date">April 2, <b>2001</b></span>

</font></p>

</div>

<div class="articleSocialMedia">

</div>

<div class="body" itemprop="articleBody">

     <section>
    <div class="newsSection"><div class="intro"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Sentiments expressed at a

March 12 <b>National Academy of Sciences</b> workshop suggest that scientists

and policy-makers remain very concerned about data access issues related

to the now infamous Shelby Amendment. The amendment, a two-line

provision added by <span class="bold">Sen. Richard Shelby</span>

(R-Ala.) to an omnibus appropriations law for fiscal year 1999, subjects

federally funded scientific research to requests for data made under

the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).¹ Its inclusion sparked

a debate between industry stakeholders and scientists. The former

endorsed the amendment as a means of challenging scientific studies that

support costly regulations; the latter expressed concerns about

increased paperwork, intellectual property searches by industry and

academic competitors, unwarranted access to personal information on

research subjects, and even deliberate use of the amendment by industry

to reinterpret data and harass researchers. </font></div> <p> <font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>After receiving

thousands of public comments, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

reinterpreted the amendment, reaffirming FOIA's privacy trade and

secrecy protections,</b> and limiting requested data to published or cited

research used by the federal government in developing legally binding

agency actions. Thus far, the legislation has not been extensively

tested. The National Institutes of Health has granted only four FOIA

requests and denied three. The Environmental Protection Agency has

received only a handful of requests. </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> Many scientists and

scientific institutions, including both the NAS and the Federation of

American Societies for Experimental Biology, saw the OMB's

interpretation as a big improvement. Several panelists at the NAS

workshop approved as well, but they expressed continued concern.

Workshop attendee <span class="bold">E. William Colgazier</span>, CEO of

the NAS and the National Research Council, was hoping the OMB agreement

would be acceptable to all interested parties. But after hearing

discussion at the workshop, he called his outlook "less sanguine." </font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> NAS director <span class="bold">Bruce Alberts</span>

said he understood the importance of openness in science, but he called

FOIA an inappropriate tool for gaining that access. He worries that

anybody can request data as a result of the Shelby amendment--that

there's no "need to know" provision. He's particularly concerned that

tobacco companies or organizations like the People for the Ethical

Treatment of Animals (PETA) will soon use FOIA to harass researchers. <span class="bold">David G. Hawkins</span>,

director of the Air and Energy Program at the Natural Resources Defense

Council, said his principle objection was Shelby's applying to only

government-funded, and not privately supported, research. Organizations

like his, said Hawkins, can't use FOIA to question data presented by

industry, though industry can question the underlying data of federally

funded research. </font></p><p> <font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been among the

most outspoken supporters of the original Shelby amendment and critics

of the OMB revision.</b> "The bottom line is that the data that needs to be

shared is the data that is part of public policy, the data that actually

imposes costs," said <span class="bold">William L. <b>Kovacs</b></span><b>,</b> vice

president of environment, technology, and regulatory affairs at the

organization. He claims that the 4,000 new industry regulations

established annually cost the U.S. economy $725 billion. Kovacs is

primarily concerned about the regulatory impact of studies like a

Harvard University-led pollution study that was undertaken to measure

the morbidity and mortality effects of particulate matter in six U.S.

cities. Dubbed the "six-city study," it was a big reason for Shelby

introducing his amendment. </font></p><p> <font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Controlling for age, weight,

occupation, education, and other factors, researchers found that the

Northeast cities nearest to coal-burning plants had higher mortality

rates</span>. Started in 1973, and continuing for more than two decades, the

study was crucial to the EPA's tightening of ambient air quality

standards. After business interests were denied access to the study's

medical data (researchers cited concerns about the anonymity of the

subjects involved), Harvard researchers enlisted an independent,

nonprofit corporation called the Health Effects Institute (HEI) to do a

data audit. HEI backed the data and the findings. </font></p><p> <font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Kovacs said

that the Chamber of Commerce remains dissatisfied and continues to

insist on seeing the data.</b> At the workshop, when asked by <span class="bold">David Korn</span>,

senior vice president for biomedical and health sciences research at

the Association of American Medical Colleges, what the U.S. Chamber

would do with the data if they had it in hand, Kovacs suggested they'd

have a team<b> "reevaluate it."</b> "And then what?" asked Korn. Kovacs gave no

specifics. Regardless, he implied that a lawsuit challenging the OMB

interpretation was a good possibility. </font></p><p> <font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>More controversy could be looming with another, lesser-known amendment referred to as the <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">"daughter of Shelby" by <span class="bold" style="">Jim J. Tozzi</span>,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">

a member of the board of advisers at the Center for Regulatory

Effectiveness. Also passed as part of an omnibus spending bill, this

"data quality"</span> amendment says that the OMB must issue regulations that

define minimum thresholds of data quality disseminated by the federal

government, and regulations that allow any outside party to petition the

government for changing that data.</b> According to Tozzi, the amendment

requires that data that researchers are presenting to the government, to

be used by the government, go through a "quality sieve." </font></p><div class="authorinfo"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Eugene Russo can be contacted at <a href="mailto:erusso@the-scientist.com">erusso@the-scientist.com</a>. </font></div> <div class="refs"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1. N. Halim, "A data access conundrum," <a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/2000/3/20/13/null" target="_blank"><em>The Scientist</em>, 14[6]:13, Mar. 20, 2000</a>. </font></div> </div>

</section>

</div><p style="margin: 0.4em 0px 0.5em; line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></span>

<b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4 lines of text inserted in 920 pp ominibus spending bill</font></b>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Data Access Act (Shelby of alabama)</span> gave fossil fuel co's access to raw data of big longterm Harvard epidemiology study that polluted air &nbsp;could be killing 40K/yr; covers only science that has some federal funding, not industry research, even when the latter is being submitted as part of regulatory process</b> 176-7. actually turns out not to be energy co's but tobacco, b/c sci found combo of tobacco and asbestos was worse than either, so asbestos had models that blames tobacco; Tobacco co's needed evidence to ctr.</font>

<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Clinton OMB reined in Shelby, but ctr was Data Quality Act</b> 178</font>

<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">OMB peer review can combine w/ either 2 to really slow regulation. 190</font>

<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">b2 admin sci chapter; typical epa sci advisory panel exxon, monsanto, dow gm as well as wwf; b2 undid</font>

<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">2006 <b>TRI gutted</b> depite bilat rec and fact that has reduced toxins 60% and did not cost much 211</font>

<font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">stats eliminated on effects of factory layoffs and how tax cuts were distributed by class 211</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2 networks of climate data cut by budget cuts 2005 NOAA 211<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 242, 0);" /></font>

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></span>

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></span>

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></span>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">see also :</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/state-data-access-act/">http://www.alec.org/model-legislation/state-data-access-act/</a></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">

</span>&nbsp;</font>

<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The&nbsp;<b>Data Quality Act</b>&nbsp;is a <b>2-sentence piece of legislation </b>-- drafted by lobbyists and snuck into the 2000 spending bill -- that directs the White House&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Office_of_Management_and_Budget" title="Office of Management and Budget" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none;">Office of Management and Budget</a>&nbsp;to issue guidelines "ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information . . . disseminated by Federal agencies."</font></span>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" color="#ff0000"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Jim_Tozzi" title="Jim Tozzi" class="mw-redirect" style="text-decoration: none; background-image: none;">Jim Tozzi</a>,</font><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> the industry friendly lobbyist who helped create the little-known "Data Quality Act,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">" is offering his assistance to medical marijuana advocates who are using the Act to undermine government claims that marijuana has no accepted medical value.</span></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Enacted in 2000, the Data Quality Act has<b> </b></span><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" color="#ff0000"><b>been used by businesses to challenge government reports on such things as climate change and diet</b></font><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. In mid-July 2005 the&nbsp;</span><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Los Angeles Times</i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;writes that Tozzi's support of medical marijuana "had more than just altruistic motives.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Since its inception, the Data Quality Act has been under attack as a weapon of big business, a stealthy way to keep federal agencies tied in knots over what constitutes&nbsp;<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Sound_science" title="Sound science" style="text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none;">sound science</a>. Eager to blunt such criticism and dash attempts to thwart his law in Congress, Tozzi has pushed public interest groups to start deploying the act against the bureaucrats."[weed ploy mult times?]</span></font></p>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; line-height: 19.2000007629395px; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="mw-headline" id="SourceWatch_links"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SourceWatch links</font></span></h2>

<ul style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px; list-style-type: square; margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAUAAAANCAMAAABW4lS6AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAAZQTFRFAFKM////QIUK9QAAAAJ0Uk5T/wDltzBKAAAAGklEQVR42mJgBAEGokgGBjBGBxBxsBqAAAMACHwALd5r8ygAAAAASUVORK5CYII=); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/James_Tozzi" title="James Tozzi" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">James Tozzi</font></a></li>

</ul>

<h2 style="font-weight: normal; margin: 0px 0px 0.6em; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0.17em; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(170, 170, 170); width: auto; line-height: 19.2000007629395px; background-image: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="mw-headline" id="External_links"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">External links</font></span></h2>

<ul style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px; list-style-type: square; margin: 0.3em 0px 0.5em 1.6em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAUAAAANCAMAAABW4lS6AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAAZQTFRFAFKM////QIUK9QAAAAJ0Uk5T/wDltzBKAAAAGklEQVR42mJgBAEGokgGBjBGBxBxsBqAAAMACHwALd5r8ygAAAAASUVORK5CYII=); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rick Weiss, "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A3733-2004Aug15?language=printer" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA/nAKks+JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">'Data Quality' Law Is Nemesis Of Regulation</a>,"&nbsp;<i>Washington Post</i>, August 16, 2004.</font></li>

<li style=" margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Eric Bailey, "<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-me-potduo18jul18,1,4361326.story?coll=la-health-medicine" style=" text-decoration: none; color: rgb(102, 51, 102); background-image: url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAoAAAAKCAYAAACNMs+9AAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAAAFZJREFUeF59z4EJADEIQ1F36k7u5E7ZKXeUQPACJ3wK7UNokVxVk9kHnQH7bY9hbDyDhNXgjpRLqFlo4M2GgfyJHhjq8V4agfrgPQX3JtJQGbofmCHgA/nAKks+JAjFAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); padding-right: 13px; background-position: 100% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;">Activist Enlists Unlikely Ally in Bid to Legalize Pot: Steph Sherer teams up with a Beltway lobbyist in fight to lift the ban on medical marijuana.</a>",&nbsp;<i>Los Angeles Times</i>, July 18, 2005.</font></li>

</ul>

<div><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></span></div><div><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div><div class="content" id="mainentrycontent" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 20px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 21px; color: rgb(34, 34, 34);"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This is the second in a three-part series. Read the first story&nbsp;<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/24/house-science-committee_n_5525609.html?1403707503" target="_hplink" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 136, 195); text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">here</a>.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The conservative “secret science” campaign harkens back nearly twenty years.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In late 1996, industry was trying to fight the Environmental Protection Agency’s first efforts to set a fine particle pollution air quality standard of "PM2.5,"</b> the abbreviation used for particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE)</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> an astroturf lobbying group founded by the petrochemical industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch in 1984, warned that the “effects of the new air quality standards on the economy would be devastating,” based in part on economic analyses conducted by the </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Center for Study of Public Choice at George Mason University </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">– a group also funded by the Koch brothers. The CSE co-founder and president was Koch Industries vice president Rich Fink, a George Mason economist who has sat on the board of the school's public choice center.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CSE, the precursor to the Tea Party groups FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity, was then led by </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">C. Boyden Gray, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">an heir to the Reynolds tobacco fortune and GOP kingmaker.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> In addition to running the tobacco-and-polluter-funded “grassroots” CSE,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Gray also managed the Orwellian-sounding “Air Quality Standards Coalition,” an industry coalition coordinated by the National Association of Manufacturers to fight EPA limits on soot and smog pollution.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As industry was not getting much traction with the “it’s going to cost too much” argument, Gray’s group employed street theater as a political tactic.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In January 1997, attendees of a Senate hearing on the proposed EPA rules encountered a group of people wearing white lab coats holding signs saying, “<b>Harvard, release the data!</b>”</span> The supposed scientists in fact came from CSE. In addition, CSE took out ads in the Chicago Tribune attacking the Harvard brand, and writers in the libertarian-industrial network questioned the legitimacy of the studies and <b>demanded the release of the private medical records at their core.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The unwillingness of the study's authors to allow access to basic data is troubling; such secrecy is incompatible with the modern scientific process,” complained a CSE publication in June 1997.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CSE also found an ideological hook for the economic-damage attacks, spinning pollution limits as an assault on freedom.<b> “Imagine that – a new government regulation that takes away our freedom to celebrate our freedom,"</b> said a CSE radio advertisement in the summer of 1997. The ad claimed that the proposed air pollution regulations would ruin Independence Day by outlawing barbecues, lawn mowers, and fireworks.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The outcome of the campaign was threefold: a<b> weakening and delay of ozone and particulate-matter rules; </b>a<b> $50 million taxpayer-funded project to reconfirm the results</b>; and legislation compelling that the data generated by federally funded research be made available to industry and the public.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fast forward to last year.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The data in question have not been subjected to scrutiny and analysis by<b> independent scientists</b>,” Rep. <b>Lamar Smith (R-Texas) </b>charged in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet Smith’s claim that the studies and the underlying patient data did not undergo independent analysis is <b>false. </b>In fact, in 1997, while Smith was serving his sixth term, Congress appropriated $49.6 million for a major research program into fine particulate matter, including a reanalysis of the Harvard and ACS studies by the Health Effects Institute. Smith voted for the bill.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“When we got the medical records from Harvard, I personally signed a confidentiality agreement, as did the investigators at University of Ottawa. The data was conveyed to a locked room with limited access,” said Health Effects Institute president Dan Greenbaum in an interview.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2000, the group issued a 297-page 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 <b>Six Cities and ACS Studies of air pollution and mortality.”</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In short, the HEI assessment confirmed the studies’ results. So did a separate HEI analysis of public records from 90 cities known as the National Morbidity, Mortality, and Air Pollution Study.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A charitable interpretation is that this multi-year, multi-million-dollar taxpayer effort advanced epidemiological methodologies. Others might say that polluters knowingly gamed the system by unfairly casting doubt on well-founded science.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Shelby Amendment</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Following these EPA battles, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) drafted the Data Access Act, better known as the Shelby Amendment, in response to his inability to get the underlying medical records from the Harvard Six Cities and American Cancer Society studies.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Shelby amendment mandated that “all data produced under a [federally funded] award will be made available to the public through the procedures established under the Freedom of Information Act [FOIA].” The Office of Management and Budget drafted rules to implement the Shelby amendment that limited the scope to research “used in developing an agency action that has the force and effect of law” and carved out exceptions for confidential data.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Efforts to repeal the Shelby amendment in 1999 led tobacco and oil industry consultant Steve Milloy to coin the term “secret science.</b>” In February, Milloy launched the “Stop Secret Science” <b>sweepstakes, offering a Wall Street Journal subscription to people who sent a comment to OMB </b>on the “secret science” rule. Soon, the Washington Times and the New York Post published “secret science” editorials, and an oil executive attacked the “secret science” of the EPA rules. But the term failed to catch on, perhaps because most politicians couldn’t claim with a straight face that confidential medical records should be made public on industry’s behalf.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Shelby amendment had little actual impact on the Harvard and ACS studies. The ACS data is not funded by federal or public dollars, and is not subject to the Data Access Act. Essentially all of the non-confidential records and data from the Harvard Six Cities research has been made public, a process that was underway before the passage of the amendment.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whatever the intent, the Shelby amendment marked an important shift in the balance of power between industry and the public, as <b>corporate researchers could get access to federally funded work without any expectation of a quid pro quo.</b></font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Forcing a Document Release</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Fifteen years later, Rep. Lamar Smith was ready to go further.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After two years of fishing expeditions begun during Ralph Hall’s chairmanship, Smith was fed up with the idea that the federal government wouldn’t –- or couldn’t –- force Harvard and the American Cancer Society to turn over private medical records to his committee.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If the <b>administration</b> [EPA?] does not provide this data by the end of July, the science committee will force its release through a subpoena,” he warned.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Although the EPA complied with Smith’s previous demands, turning over all of the records under its control, Smith pushed the subpoena forward. On Aug. 1 of last year, the committee authorized subpoenas against the EPA, Harvard University, and the American Cancer Society on a party-line vote. That day, Smith issued a subpoena to the EPA.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A month later, Smith expressed his anger at the EPA’s limited response, challenging the agency to force Harvard and the cancer society to turn over the medical records so that his Committee can “analyze the health effects of exposure to certain air pollutants.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a Sept. 3 letter to EPA administrator Gina McCarthy, Smith claimed that the OMB’s implementation of the Shelby amendment means the EPA’s power to<b> compel private institutions to turn over records is without limit, </b>no matter what confidentiality agreements exist between the researchers and their subjects, or between the government and the researchers.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A March 2013 Congressional Research Service report on the Shelby amendment notes that its scope “excludes personal and business-related confidential data.”</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) asked Smith who he wanted to pass along the research data to, he said, “<b>Dr. James Enstrom.”</b></font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It turns out that Mr. Smith’s preferred expert for more than two decades has been closely connected to the American tobacco industry, reviled for its promotion of deceptive marketing and faux-science.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'I Understand Science Better'</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Enstrom, an epidemiologist, is perhaps best known for his work on tobacco industry-funded studies, including studies on the health effects of tobacco and second-hand smoke.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">His first published work as an epidemiologist, which wasn't funded by the industry, “Cancer Mortality Among Mormons” (1975), found that Mormons’ low consumption of tobacco and alcohol seemed linked to lower cancer rates than the general population.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That said, Enstrom’s attempts to be funded by the tobacco industry go back to the beginning of his career, as communications as far back as 1975 indicate. Enstrom received $233,500 from 1992 to 1998 from the tobacco industry-sponsored Council for Tobacco Research. In 1997, as anti-tobacco lawsuits were leading to the dissolution of CTR, Enstrom solicited and received $150,000 directly from Philip Morris for research based on his idea that “there may indeed be a threshold below which tobacco use is not related to mortality.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Given the tobacco industry’s widespread campaign of deliberate deceit about the health risks of smoking, tobacco-funded research is now considered tainted.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a 2007 essay, Enstrom accused the entire field of epidemiology of “science McCarthyism.” He finds the move to restrict tobacco-industry funding for research into the health effects of tobacco to be the equivalent of the Soviet government’s efforts to create a "regime of truth" by outlawing research into genetics.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Enstrom has argued depictions of him as a “tobacco industry consultant,” including the one made by Johnson, are “defamatory.” [told singer to sue oreskes]
</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As the tobacco money dried up, Enstrom switched over to industry-funded studies of air pollution.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In a 2005 study funded by Electric Power Research Institute, Enstrom failed to find a “relationship between fine particulate pollution and total mortality in elderly Californians,” in contrast to conclusions reached in previous work by the American Cancer Society.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a telephone interview from his home in Los Angeles, Enstrom said he’s not biased towards industry but towards the science, and is so often at loggerheads with other researchers because he’s smarter than epidemiologists with medical or other backgrounds. “I'm saying I understand science better,” he said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Whether or not Enstrom’s views on science are better, many are unusual.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For example, Enstrom had no explanation regarding how fine-particulate pollution could have been found to be deadly at various points in the past, as multiple studies around the globe have found, but are not now in California, as he hypothesizes. He told me that the burden of proof should be on the mainstream medical community, because there isn’t medical research that explains how soot causes cardiopulmonary diseases.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We don't have a mechanism,” he said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But just to cite one of many well-regarded studies on the topic, a decade-old report from the National Research Council noted that there is “growing clinical and epidemiological evidence that ambient air pollution can precipitate acute cardiac events, such as angina pectoris, cardiac arrhythmias, and myocardial infarction.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Enstrom said he believed that there are potential benefits to exposure to air pollution and radiation. He cited the concept of "hormesis," a controversial scientific concept that hasn't gained widespread acceptance among scientists and is generally reviled by environmentalists.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> He said hormesis posits that “below a certain level of pollution there's a loss of natural immunity; if the air is too clean the body doesn't necessarily protect itself.”</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I believe there's a lot of evidence supporting the validity of hormesis,” he told me.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unsolicited, Enstrom then made a point to defend the rampant climate-science denial among the Republican members of the House Science Committee. “We should be all thankful that we live in a country where freedom of speech is allowed,” he said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Private Medical Records</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the main concerns from environmentalists, science advocates, Democrats and others about Smith's demands for the Harvard and American Cancer Society data is that the data includes confidential, personal health information from participants who were promised confidentiality. Such a disclosure of the data would violate their trust, they maintain.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet Smith and his aides (and Enstrom) insist there are ways that participants can be "de-identified."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Even if you were unable to de-identify the documents, you were still required to produce them,” Smith wrote in a September 3 letter to EPA administrator Gina McCarthy. “We are confident the data can be de-identified with relative ease.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But many, including the author of the Six Cities study, argue Smith's position is faulty.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Anonymizing doesn’t work,” said Frank Speizer. “To know enough from the medical records to be able to replicate the results gives you enough information to personally identify individuals.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Speizer added that the specter of being forced to disclose private data is a "stigma" on new research. “How do you get investigators to do this work?" he asked. "How are you going to get people to participate?”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The data included in Harvard Six Cities includes detailed medical records, tests, visits on 8,000 individuals,” explained Greenbaum of the Health Effects Institute. “There are sworn signed statements that we will not disclose this information in any way.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“One of the principal rules that goes throughout science," said Greenbaum, is that "you are really constrained from presenting the data in more than aggregated form.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For example, Greenbaum noted, when the studies were first done, researchers relied on having one or two air monitors in each city and estimating that the exposure reflects everyone in that city. There are now improved methodologies that are based on where people live. “If you know where somebody lives, and when they died, you know who they are,” he explained.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When I presented Greenbaum’s points to Enstrom, he conceded that Greenbaum could be right. “You’re raising concerns that I don’t want to deal with in this phone call,” said Enstrom.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Secret Science Reform Act</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The August subpoena authorized the committee to directly mandate that Harvard University and the American Cancer Society turn over their confidential records. Despite Smith’s rhetoric about the multi-trillion-dollar importance of getting access to the patient records, his committee has only gone after the EPA.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since the EPA doesn’t actually have the confidential medical records, he has changed course, with a new and much broader line of attack.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">On February 6,</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Smith and Rep. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">David Schweikert (R-Ariz.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">) introduced the Secret Science Reform Act.</span></b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The bill is less than a page long, but it is breathtaking in scope. It forbids the EPA from taking any kind of action – regulatory, advisory, or enforcement – unless the action relies entirely on scientific research that has had all of its data made public.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Unlike the “secret science” subpoena effort, the bill doesn’t try to force the disclosure of confidential data. Instead, it calls for the exclusion of any such research in EPA actions.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Virtually every regulation proposed by the Obama administration has been justified by nontransparent data and unverifiable claims,” said Smith in his press release announcing the bill. “The American people foot the bill for EPA’s costly regulations, and they have a right to see the underlying science.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Environmental advocates say it would have been difficult to launch a more potentially devastating attack on the EPA and its stated mission, "to protect human health and the environment."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Anyone who understood anything about EPA and the myriad responsibilities and legal authorities it has to undertake at the direction of Congress could not have written a two-paragraph bill that more thoroughly disrupts the agency’s ability to protect the public,” said clean-air advocate John Walke of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “One gasps at how oblivious it is to a vast array of unintended and absurd consequences.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The potential public health implications go beyond preventing the EPA from regulating air pollution.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One example: In June, 2010, the Gulf Coast was reeling from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. Millions of barrels of crude were gushing into the gulf, treated with millions of gallons of deep-sea chemical dispersants. In Jackson, Mississippi, state legislators convened a series of hearings on the disaster, which BP officials refused to attend.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Legislators – even Steven Palazzo, now a member of the House Science Committee and a co-sponsor the Secret Science Reform Act – asked if the dispersants could make made Gulf seafood toxic.</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The chemical composition of those dispersants was and remains confidential.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Another example: Walke noted that the Elk River chemical spill in West Virginia earlier this year involved one chemical the EPA knew about but was shrouded in secrecy, and another they didn’t know about at all. More than 100 people were made sick by exposure to the chemical, and about 300,000 residents were warned not to use their tap water in any capacity.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Smith bill, if in effect, in both cases would have prevented the EPA from acting on known dangers that it learned about from confidential information – so therefore, had the law been in place, the agency could not have acted to prevent the circumstances that led to either spill, nor could they have assisted in the spills' aftermath.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Said Walke: "That is ridiculous!"</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Weird Science</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Smith hasn't used his perch as committee chairman only to try to make life miserable for environmental regulators. He's got a thing for scientists, too.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The bookish-appearing Smith, who wears round rimless glasses and generally has a quiet, respectful demeanor, has cast his agenda regarding the<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> $7 billion National Science Foundation with Texas-sized swagger. “I’m going to have a little fun with them,” he told the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce February 5. “I’m going to change the way the grants are awarded if I have my way.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">On April 18, 2013, <b>Smith</b> introduced a draft of the </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">High Quality Research Act</b><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, which would compel the NSF director to certify that every grant is for “groundbreaking” research that “solves problems that are of utmost importance to society at large.”</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Inasmuch as the grants come before the results of the research are known, the proposed act was rightly considered absurd.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Smith and other GOP members of the committee argue that the NSF awards far too many grants on topics of an unserious nature, which do little but allow left-leaning scientists to travel to often-exotic locales on the federal dime.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">He and the other committee Republicans looked at the most recent crop of 164 NSF grants issued the month before he introduced his NSF bill for examples. Looking at titles alone, and not the substance of the proposals -– which is what one prominent Democrat says Smith did -– questions might understandably be raised about whether taxpayers should be paying for the studies.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One of the grants 164 the NSF announced in March, 2013, was titled, “Picturing Animals in National Geographic, 1888-2008.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Soon after, the Washington Times asked, “[C]an the government really afford to spend $227,437 to study pictures of animals in National Geographic magazines?”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A month later, <b>Rep. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) challenged John Holdren,</b> President Obama's top science advisor, to justify that and other NSF-funded studies, saying “it’s just hard to conceive how those are important to our national security or our national interest.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Smith sent a letter to acting NSF director Cora Merritt listing the abstract titles for five grants, including the one regarding National Geographic, questioning their “intellectual merit.” The other grants, which ranged from $152,000 to $435,000, were titled "Comparative Histories of Scientific Conservation: Nature, Science, and Society in Patagonian and Amazonian South America”; “The International Criminal Court and the Pursuit of Justice”; “Comparative Network Analysis: Mapping Global Social Interactions”; and “Regulating Accountability and Transparency in China’s Dairy Industry.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet put in context, it's clear that these studies could be defined as being in the national interest, using a wide range of definitions. According to the NSF Award Abstract, Megan Tracy, an anthropologist with James Madison University, is studying, in part, "how individuals, motivated by global scandals and the pressure to prevent future incidents, transmit and transform food safety regulations and best practices across international borders."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And Maxine Kamari Clarke, a Yale-based anthropologist, will be studying the arrest warrants the International Criminal Court has pursued against African national leaders, as it pertains to "international justice and human rights as these concepts have been interpreted by the [ICC] and the African Union Commission."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">All five grants were issued by the NSF Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">During his tenure as chair, Smith has attacked a total of 20 different NSF grants by name, 18 of which are in the social sciences. (The other two were related to climate change.)</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Remarkably, two-thirds of these grant recipients are female scientists. Smith’s attacks on research conducted by women took some effort, as females represent only about 30 percent of practicing scientists.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Democrats suspect that Smith's filter doesn’t appear to go beyond reading the names of the abstracts. “It has been my experience that some members read the titles of the research grants but seldom read the substance behind the headlines,” said Science Committee member Rep. Donna Edwards, (D-Md.), referring to Smith.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Just as she did when Smith tried to subpoena the Harvard and American Cancer Society data, Johnson, the panel's top Democrat, again issued a harsh rebuke to Smith after he introduced the High Quality Research Act.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"This is the first step on a path that would destroy the merit-based review process at NSF and intrudes political pressure into what is widely viewed as the most effective and creative process for awarding research funds in the world," Johnson wrote April 26 of last year. "In the history of this Committee, no Chairman has ever put themselves forward as an expert in the science that underlies specific grant proposals funded by the NSF."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Washington-based advocates for scientific research say the peer-review process by which NSF grants have been funded works well and is accepted as the best available system –- and that allowing politics to be interjected into the process would be potentially disastrous.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The veiled attack on the merit review system is a serious concern. Scientists come together to volunteer their time and evaluate your competitors’ research. You’re only going to fund the best ideas. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s the best system we do have,” said Erin Cadwalader of the Association for Women in Science, herself a biomedical scientist. “It’s important science remain separate from partisan politics.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s hard to predict what ideas are going to yield what’s useful and fruitful,” said Cadwalader. “You can’t study heart development without understanding how heart cells communicate with each other. It’s tedious and not very sexy, but it’s what has to be done to understand how to treat heart disease.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Barry Toiv, a spokesman for the American Association of Universities, which represents top public and private research universities, agreed.<b> “Some of the most extraordinary results have come from research that sounds completely uninteresting, funny, weird, irrelevant,” he said.</b></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After months of criticism, Smith slightly watered down the HQRA language into a provision in the FIRST Act, which stands for Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology. The bill is a 2-year reauthorization of NSF programs that still requires NSF officials to certify every research grant as “in the national interest.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On May 1, Holdren told attendees of a forum sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science that the FIRST Act "would have an extraordinarily unfortunate effect" on the NSF's grantmaking process, according to an account from ScienceInsider.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I think that NSF’s peer-review process has proven itself over the years in a manner that has made it the envy of the world,” said Holdren. “Everybody else is trying to mimic the success NSF has had from funding research. I don’t think we should be trying to fix something that isn’t broken.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In a question and answer session after his talk, Holdren got to the heart of the matter. The bill, he said, "appears aimed at narrowing the focus of NSF-funded research to domains that are applied to various national interests other than simply advancing the progress of science."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Facing Draconian Funding Cuts</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If you look at where we are as a nation, the greatest need is more jobs, to get our economy started,” Rep. <b>Sherwood Boehlert, (R</b>-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Science Committee from 2001 until his retirement in 2007, said in a telephone interview from his home in upstate New York. “Most jobs come from the development of new technology, which come from government investment, especially in the basic science enterprise.”</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">At the request of Boehlert, the National Academy of Sciences developed a 2007 report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm, that set goals for greatly expanding the science workforce to ensure America’s future economic competitiveness. The first authorization of the bipartisan Competes Act was 2007, with initial reauthorization in 2010. The goal was to double funding for key agencies in seven years.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The economy tanked and that didn’t happen. Today, the U.S. scientific enterprise is in retreat.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Since the Republican takeover of Congress, the gap between the goals of the 2010 Competes Act and actual science funding has widened into a chasm, with the cuts mandated by sequestration in 2013 adding insult to injury.</span> Only the engineering and computer science directorates at NSF have enjoyed funding in line with inflation, while the other directorates have remained flat or fallen into decline.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“In science, when you cut research funding, you're cutting the research as well as the training of the next generation of scientists,” said Toiv. “Training researchers occurs at the same time as you get the research done. You're sending a message to potential young scientists: get out while you can.”</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The FIRST Act not only calls for funding that doesn’t even keep up with inflation, it intends to cut funding for the social and economic sciences by 45 percent. Social sciences have never been a major portion of NSF funding. This bill suggests even that is too much.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Smith's war on social science spells doom for his professed goals for American science in general.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Policy Objective D of the FIRST Act is “expanding the pool of scientists and engineers in the United States, including among segments of the population that have been historically underrepresented" in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet, “it seems like a contradiction to say we’re going to prioritize doing these things without providing the funding to answer the questions of how to do this,” said Cadwalader.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The House Anti-Science Committee</font></strong></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The salvos against soot regulations and social science are examples of extreme rhetoric with potentially disastrous consequences to the scientific enterprise in return for relatively small gains to corporate polluters.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the existence of climate change represents an existential threat to the fossil-fuel industry, and the Republican Party has become, as political historian and former GOP operative Kevin Phillips writes, the vehicle for “petroleum-defined national security.” It's global warming that sparks the Science Committee’s most aggressive language.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The March 26 hearing before the Science Committee to review the President’s proposed science budget was a typical display.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After Smith gaveled in the hearing, he launched directly into an attack on climate science. “Unfortunately, this administration’s science budget focuses, in my view, far too much money, time, and effort on alarmist predictions of climate change,” he said.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After the likes of Posey, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas) took turns trying to mock and belittle White House science advisor John Holdren,</span> it became clear that by the time Smith called on the last committee member, Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, Swalwell had had enough. He had listened to more than his fill of climate denial, science-bashing and general hostility toward the witness.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Swalwell, at 33 the committee's youngest member, warned Holdren about where Republicans might try to lead him the next time he's called to testify.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"At this rate, frankly, I'd say you should be prepared to address whether the earth is round or flat – that might come up – or whether indeed gravity is happening," said Swalwell. "You never know what could fly at you from what we've seen already."</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="">This story was supported by The American Independent Institute.</font></span></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 15px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-stretch: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">CORRECTION</strong>: A previous version of this story misstated the meaning of "PM2.5," which refers to the diameter of fine particles, not their prevalence.</font></span></p></div><footer style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="follow bottom-tags" style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: 17px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><h2 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 3px 5px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; line-height: 1.2; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-transform: uppercase; float: left;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MORE:</font></h2><span class="group" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="entrytag" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/lamar-smith/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 136, 195); text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">Lamar Smith</a></span><span class="entrytag" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/epa/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 136, 195); text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">EPA</a></span><span class="entrytag" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/science/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 136, 195); text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">Science</a></span><span class="entrytag" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/richard-shelby/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 136, 195); text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">Richard Shelby</a></span><span class="entrytag" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/climate-change/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 136, 195); text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">Climate Change</a></span><span class="entrytag" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/republican-war-on-science/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 136, 195); text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">Republican War on Science</a></span><span class="entrytag" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/war-on-science/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 136, 195); text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">War on Science</a></span><span class="entrytag" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/house-science-committee/" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(0, 136, 195); text-decoration: none; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; font-weight: bold; display: inline;">House Science Committee</a></span></font></span></div><div class="follow bottom-tags" style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); line-height: 17px; box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="group" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></span></div><div class="follow bottom-tags" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; direction: ltr; border: 0px; border-image-source: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-width: initial; border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="group" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 17px;"><font color="#222222" size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/25/secret-science-epa_n_5529521.html</font></span></div></footer></div><div><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></span></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">timeline&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/daily/graphics/regs_081604.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/daily/graphics/regs_081604.html</a></font></div>

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<div><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3733-2004Aug15_5.html"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3733-2004Aug15_5.html</font></a></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">THE FINE PRINT |
A Policy Puts Science on Trial</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'Data Quality' Law Is Nemesis Of Regulation</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">very good chart http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/graphics/dataQualityChart_081704.html</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ctr reg eff, cei, acc, last 2 together on pthalates, mic, cei 4x, dow, asbestos, 3 sen v epa 3/7/03 oil gas on stormwater, perc, ranch, USCoC, public employees for environmental responsibilty PEER good guys, EWG</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By Rick Weiss</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Washington Post Staff Writer</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Monday, <b>August 16, 2004</b>; Page A01</font></div>

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Second of three articles</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Things were not looking good a few years ago for the makers of<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font color="#ff0000"> atrazine,</font> America's second-leading weedkiller.</span> The company was seeking approval from the Environmental Protection Agency to keep the highly profitable product on the market. But scientists were finding it was disrupting hormones in wildlife -- in some cases turning frogs into bizarre creatures bearing both male and female sex organs.</font></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Last October, concerns about the herbicide led the European Union to ban atrazine, starting in 2005. Yet that same month, after 10 years of contentious scientific review, the EPA decided to permit ongoing use in the United States with no new restrictions.</font></span></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[An Agency Takes a Turn</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Under President Bush, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has made sometimes subtle changes in regulations that carry large consequences for workers and employers. <b>Across the government, the Bush administration has started fewer regulations and killed more of the proposals Bush inherited than two predecessors. </b>TB]</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font color="#ff0000">A last-minute addition to an unrelated piece of legislation has created a tool for attacking the science used by federal agencies as a basis for new regulations. Industry has embraced the Data Quality Act to challenge 32 major proposals</font>, including a successful assault on efforts to restrict the use of the herbicide <b>atrazine.</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Herbicide approvals are complicated, and there is no one reason that atrazine passed regulatory muster in this country. But close observers give significant credit to a single sentence that was added to the EPA's final scientific assessment last year.</font></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hormone disruption, it read, cannot be considered a "legitimate regulatory endpoint at this time" -- that is, it is not an acceptable reason to restrict a chemical's use -- because the government had not settled on an officially accepted test for measuring such disruption.</font></span></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Those words, which effectively rendered moot hundreds of pages of scientific evidence, were adopted by the EPA as a result of a petition filed by a Washington consultant working with atrazine's primary manufacturer, Syngenta Crop Protection. <font color="#ff0000">The petition was filed under the Data Quality Act,</font> a little-known piece of legislation that, under President Bush's Office of Management and Budget, has become a potent tool for companies seeking to beat back regulation.</font></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Data Quality Act -- written by an industry lobbyist and <font color="#ff0000">slipped into a giant appropriations bill in 2000 without congressional discussion or debate </font>-- is just <b>two sentences directing the OMB to ensure that all information disseminated by the federal government is reliable</b>. But the Bush administration's interpretation of those two sentences could tip the balance in regulatory disputes that weigh the interests of consumers and businesses.</font></span></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font color="#ff0000"><b>John D. Graham,</b> administrator of the OMB Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)<b>,</b></font><b> who has directed implementation of the Data Quality Act, said the law will keep the federal government hewing to "sound science.</b>" He said the act,<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> which allows people and companies to challenge government information they believe is inaccurate, is equally accessible to "a wide diversity of interests, both in the business community and in the consumer, environmental and conservation communities."</span></font></div>

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<div><font color="#ff0000" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But many consumers, conservationists and worker advocates say the act is inherently biased in favor of industry</span>. By demanding that government use only data that have achieved a rare level of certainty, these critics maintain, the act dismisses scientific information that in the past would have triggered tighter regulation.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>A Washington Post analysis of government records indicates that in the first 20 months since the act was fully implemented, it has been used predominantly by industry.</b> Setting aside the many Data Quality Act petitions filed to correct narrow typographical or factual errors in government publications or Web sites, the <b>analysis found 39 petitions with potentially broad economic, policy or regulatory impact. Of those, 32 were filed by regulated industries, business or trade organizations or their lobbyists. Seven were filed by environmental or citizen groups. Some environmental groups are boycotting the act, adding to the imbalance in its use.</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Among the petitions:</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">• <b>The <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">American Chemistry Council</span> and others challenged data used by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) as it sought to ban wood treated with heavy metals and arsenic in playground equipment.[see appendiz, acsh?]</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">• <b>Logging</b> groups challenged Forest Service calculations used to justify restrictions on timber harvests.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">• <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Sugar</span> interests challenged the Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration over dietary recommendations to limit sugar intake.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">• The <font color="#ff0000">Salt Institute</font> and the U.S. <b>Chamber of Commerce </b>challenged data that led the National Institutes of Health to recommend that people cut back on salt.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">• The Nickel Development Institute and other nickel interests challenged a government report on the hazards of that metal.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">• The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers petitioned the CPSC to retract data that ranked the risk of lint fires in various clothes dryers.</font></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Environmental and consumer groups say the Data Quality Act fits into a larger Bush administration agenda. In the past six months, more than<b> 4,000 scientists, including dozens of Nobel laureates and 11 winners of the National Medal of Science, have signed statements accusing the administration of politicizing science.</b></font></span></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The White House's heavy editing of a key global-warming report, its efforts to emphasize abstinence rather than condoms in the war against AIDS and its alleged stacking of scientific advisory committees have drawn particular ire. But many scientists and public advocates believe that far more is at stake with the Data Quality Act.</font></div>

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<div><font color="#ff0000" size="4" face="Times New Roman">From their perspective, the act is shifting the authority over the nation's science into the politicized environment of the OMB -- a change, they say, that will favor big business.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>'Data Quality' Law Is Nemesis Of Regulation</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"It's a tool to clobber every effort to regulate," said Rena Steinzor, a professor of law and director of the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Maryland. "In my view, it amounts to censorship and harassment.</span>"</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">That's a view that Christopher C. <b>Horner </b>of the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute -- which has used the act repeatedly to challenge scientific information -- brushed off as "whiny."</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Hey, you're making me be accurate," he mocked. "I have no sympathy for that."</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Horner said the act, if anything, has proved less useful than anticipated to groups such as his that seek to minimize government regulation. And figures from the OMB confirm that agencies have in many cases resisted challenges to their scientific findings.</font></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Of the 39 Data Quality Act petitions in The Post's analysis, five have resulted in at least some of the changes sought -- all of them filed by industry interests. Five were denied, five were diverted by the agencies to other bureaucratic avenues, and 24 are pending.</font></span></div>

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<div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet there are signs, Graham acknowledged, that<b> petitioners are becoming more innovative </b>in their use of the act. And petitioners are<b> homing in on agencies whose mission is to protect the environment and public health. </b>The most heavily petitioned are the Environmental Protection Agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Institutes of Health, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Studying Atrazine&nbsp;</b></font></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font color="#ff0000">Nearly 80 million pounds of atrazine are sprayed on tens of millions of U.S. acres every year, mostly on corn. </font>It is, according to the EPA, the most prevalent herbicide in ground and surface water, remaining stable and toxic for decades in some environments.</font></span></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It is also a major source of revenue for Syngenta, a Swiss company with U.S. headquarters in Greensboro, N.C., that sells hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of the chemical every year.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 204, 0);">It has been nearly five decades since atrazine was first "registered" -- meaning it was approved for use under certain conditions</span>. Over the <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">years, as more was learned about the chemical's potential toxicity to wildlife and humans, it came under increasing federal scrutiny and regulatory restriction. The<b> number of pounds that farmers can legally apply per acre has progressively been reduced, and users have been required to keep the chemical farther and farther away from wells, lakes and reservoirs.</b></span></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font color="#ff0000">For decades, the main concern was cancer. The chemical clearly causes cancer in rats, and male workers in Syngenta's production facility in Louisiana have experienced much higher rates of prostate cancer than other men statewide</font>. But studies supported by Syngenta recently convinced the EPA that the mechanism by which atrazine causes cancer in rats probably does not occur in people. (The company said the only reason for the high rate of prostate cancer in its workers is that it has an aggressive screening program that finds cases that would otherwise go undetected.) Studies are ongoing, but the<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> EPA has for now backed off atrazine's cancer threat.</span></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Hermaphrodite frogs</b>, however, have been more difficult to dismiss.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For years, evidence has accumulated suggesting that atrazine may scramble hormones in frogs and other animals. The European Union has officially declared the chemical an endocrine disrupter. Given those concerns, Syngenta's predecessor company -- Novartis Agribusiness -- decided early in the EPA's review not to leave the question up to government scientists. In 1998, it hired a private risk-assessment service, <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">EcoRisk</span> Inc. of Ferndale, Wash., to arrange experiments on atrazine's environmental impacts.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">EcoRisk, whose past clients include the<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Chlorine Chemistry Council, Dow Chemical and Ciba-Geigy Corp</span>., in turn hired Tyrone B.<b> Hayes</b>, a professor of integrative biology and an expert in frog development at the University of California at Berkeley. Hayes holds a biology degree from Harvard and a doctorate in amphibian development from Berkeley, where he was<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> tenured at age 30 and became the university's youngest full professor.[almost]</span></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As part of a team of scientists assembled by EcoRisk, Hayes tested the effects of atrazine on tadpoles of African clawed frogs, a popular "lab rat" species for scientists. Male tadpoles raised with no atrazine in the water developed normally. But those exposed to atrazine were "demasculinized." They had smaller larynxes (voice boxes), their testosterone levels were one-tenth of normal levels, and many grew up as hermaphrodites, with a mix of male and female traits. Moreover, the effects appeared with very small exposures -- just 0.1 parts per billion, or the equivalent of one drop of atrazine in 5,000 40-gallon barrels of water. That's one-thirtieth the level currently allowed in U.S. drinking water.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Hayes sought to publish his work and have the data considered by the EPA, the company told him to run the tests again, said Hayes and Tim Pastoor, a Syngenta vice president.<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> When repeated studies confirmed the worrisome link, <b>Hayes was reminded that his contract forbade him to publish without Syngenta's approval. </b></span><b>He was told that his data ought to be passed to a company-selected statistician for double-checking.</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hayes quit EcoRisk and repeated his experiments on his own, expanding his work to include other frog species. In one follow-up study of 200 leopard frogs caught in the wild, he found that 100 percent of males in areas that had been treated with atrazine had abnormal sex organs. No such problems were seen in frogs from untreated regions. <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He published his results in two prestigious journals, Nature in 2002 and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2003. That ensured the EPA would consider his findings.</span></font></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We showed that these animals are chemically castrated," Hayes said.</font></span></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ernest Smith, a developmental biologist at Texas Tech University in Lubbock and a member of the EcoRisk team, denied that EcoRisk or Syngenta tried to bury Hayes's results.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I think there were some communications breakdowns," he said.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Smith noted that studies conducted by the other team members had contradicted Hayes's data. Some showed health effects only at higher atrazine doses, while others found no effect at all.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A special EPA science panel would eventually level stinging criticisms at those studies for their poor design and sloppy implementation. Still, the conflicting results left the atrazine question at a standoff. <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That is when the company turned to the Data Quality Act -- and <font color="#ff0000">Jim J. Tozzi.</font></span></font></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>'Working the Regulatory Process'&nbsp;</b></font></span></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Syngenta could not have found a better advocate. Tozzi wrote the Data Quality Act and arranged for its congressional passage after the 2000 elections.</font></span></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Today he is a Washington lobbyist and head of the<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Center for Regulatory Effectiveness, a watchdog group that specializes in data qualit</span>y. Tozzi does not reveal his center's contributors, and the atrazine petition he filed does not have Syngenta's name on it. The petition names only the Kansas Corn Growers Association and the<font color="#ff0000"> Triazine Network,</font> a coalition formed in 1995 to defend atrazine and related herbicides.<b> But <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Pastoor, </span>Syngenta's head of human safety, said the company helped finance the petition process through contributions to another of Tozzi's businesses, a lobbying firm called Multinational Business Services.</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tozzi is "the master craftsman when it comes to working the regulatory process," said Ken Cook of the Washington-based Environmental Working Group.<font color="#ff0000"> "He knows where the sensitive spots are and where to press and leave no fingerprints."</font></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Once a self-described "bottom-tier" musician on the steamy New Orleans jazz circuit, Tozzi earned a degree in economics and rose to OMB deputy administrator under Ronald Reagan.</b> Under his directorship, the OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs was the gatekeeper for virtually all proposed regulations dealing with public health and safety.<b> It quickly became known as a bureaucratic "black hole," where proposed regulations went in for review and never came out, said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen<i>, </i></b>a Washington-based consumer advocacy group.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tozzi was at the OMB when evidence arose in the 1980s that giving aspirin to children with flu symptoms increased the risk of Reye's syndrome, a potentially fatal complication. A federal health agency recommended that aspirin containers bear warnings, but Tozzi said he was not satisfied the evidence was good enough. It took years for activists and Congress to force the labeling issue -- years in which <font color="#ff0000">almost 200 children died of Reye's. Today, with labeling, the syndrome is extremely rare.</font></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">After leaving the government, Tozzi helped<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Philip Morris fight mounting evidence of the dangers of secondhand cigarette smoke</span>. That is when he <b>pioneered the tactic of attacking the science</b> behind proposed regulations.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"The argument that it costs too much to protect people does not sell," said Thomas O. McGarity, a professor at the University of Texas Law School in Austin and president of the Washington-based Center for Progressive Regulation, a network of academics that supports regulatory action to protect health, safety and the environment. "But what does sell is this idea that the science is not good."</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Science is ever evolving and often hobbled by uncertainty, but policymakers have long recognized this and relied on weight-of-evidence arguments in making regulations, according to McGarity, other activists and Clinton administration officials. They point out that DDT was banned despite lingering doubts about its role in the decline of birds. Many other substances, including vinyl chloride and asbestos, also were regulated before their full effects were known.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tozzi, believing that the regulatory bar was too low, tried repeatedly to get Congress to pass legislation that would make it easier to challenge the science used to underpin regulations. Then, unable to receive broad congressional support,<font color="#ff0000"> he crafted legislative language himself and gave it to<b> Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.), a former lobbyist and onetime deputy director of communications for the National Republican Congressional Committee</b>. The wording -- two sentences of 32 short lines -- directed the OMB to issue guidelines "ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information . . . disseminated by Federal agencies."</font></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Emerson slipped the sentences into the 712-page Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, </b>which became the coming year's omnibus spending bill. Under pressure to wrap up the long-delayed budget, President Bill Clinton signed the huge bill on Dec. 21, 2000, nine days after the Supreme Court ruled that George W. Bush was to be the next president. It is not clear whether anyone in Congress other than Emerson and<font color="#ff0000"> Sen. Richard C. Shelby </font>(R-Ala.) knew about the buried language.</font></div>

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<div><font color="#993399" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"We sandwiched this in between Jerry Ford's library and something else," Tozzi said. "Was it something that did not have hearings? Yes. Is it something that keeps me awake at night? No. Is it something that I would do again, exactly? Yes, you bet your ass I would. I would not even think about it, okay? Sometimes you get the monkey, and sometimes the monkey gets you."</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Tozzi found even more reason to rejoice as Bush made a pivotal appointment to head the OIRA, Tozzi's old domain within OMB that would now handle data quality: John Graham, a risk-assessment specialist with a history of close ties to regulated industries.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font color="#ff0000">"John Graham</font> came in, and he did an unbelievable job,"</span> Tozzi said. <b>"Better than I could have done had I been there myself."</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Politicizing the Process&nbsp;</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Graham had been the head of Harvard's Center for Risk Analysis, an institution funded primarily by contributions from more than 100 industry and trade association donors. While there, he had amassed a reputation as a skilled critic of the cost of regulation.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In one analysis, conducted with funding from the auto industry, he concluded that it would be a mistake to require side air bags in cars because they would cost $400,000 for every year of life saved. Independent experts reviewing his work found that the figure was actually about $60,000, and Graham had to rewrite his article -- and change his conclusion -- before it could be published in a prestigious medical journal.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When Bush nominated Graham to head the OIRA, many citizen and environmental groups vehemently objected and <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">more than one-third of the Senate voted no.</span> In his first few months, Graham sent many near-final regulations back to the agencies that had proposed them, often saying he was not convinced they were worth the cost.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Then he turned to the job of implementing the Data Quality Act.</font></div>

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<div><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">By the fall of 2001, Graham's office had published detailed guidelines for implementing the act.</span> A year later, federal agencies started accepting petitions requesting that they withdraw information that allegedly did not meet OMB standards for "quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity."</font></b></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Individual agencies are responsible for reviewing the challenged data and deciding whether they are indeed reliable.<font color="#ff0000"> But the OMB, a part of the White House, oversees the process closely -</font>- through involvement in the agencies' deliberations and by demanding annual reports describing how agencies dealt with each petition.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">OMB staff members have been providing "extensive assistance to agencies in preparing responses to correction requests," Graham acknowledged. "OMB oversight is critical to make sure that agencies handle these requests in a diligent and consistent manner," he said.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Graham said the OMB's unprecedented foray into science is justified in part because the data in question often serve as a foundation for costly regulation, which the OMB oversees. To fulfill the new role, Graham hired the OMB's first nine career scientists, including six with PhDs.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">he Data Quality Act, or at least something like it, "was absolutely needed," said<b><font color="#ff0000"> </font></b><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b><font color="#ff0000">Horner</font></b> of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.</span></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet Steinzor, the Maryland environmental lawyer, and other critics complain that the OMB's involvement politicizes the process. The expertise of the handful of scientists hired by Graham, they say, cannot match that of the thousands of experts on agency staffs.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And while Graham said the OMB still supports weight-of-the-evidence analyses, Steinzor and others contend that the Data Quality Act <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">inherently focuses on individual snippets of data</span> -- each of which is inevitably open to criticism -- instead of on overarching bodies of evidence.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"You can get lost in the minutiae, and that's exactly where they want you to go," Steinzor said. "They just pick, pick, pick, until you're so addled you can't protect people or the environment."</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A Tool for Decreasing Regulation&nbsp;</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A few environmental and public interest groups have tried to use the Data Quality Act. <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility</span>, a Washington-based group that helps federal scientists who believe their data are being suppressed, has filed three petitions under the act.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">One challenged the credibility of a Defense Department document supporting a proposed Army Corps of Engineers project; one contended that the Fish and Wildlife Service had made selective use of data to conclude that hunters should be allowed to shoot rare trumpeter swans; and one charged that Fish and Wildlife had used unsound science to develop "an inadequate recovery plan" for the Florida panther.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I'm not sure it is the sharpest tool in the environmental toolbox, but at least it is a tool," said executive director Jeff Ruch, adding that the swan petition lost and the other two are still under review.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many citizen groups and environmental activists believe the Data Quality Act will always be more useful to those seeking to decrease government regulation. Newly proposed regulations must be justified with evidence, they note, and the act is designed specifically to challenge such evidence.</font></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"What it really can do best is slow the regulatory process," said Sean Moulton, a senior policy analyst with <font color="#ff0000">OMB Watch</font>, a government watchdog group. "And even a simple delay of a rule can mean a huge financial windfall for an industry."</font></span></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the first 20 months, a handful of petitions -- all from industry -- have been at least partly successful. In one, the Competitive Enterprise Institute had wording added to a multi-agency federal climate change report stating that the report's findings did not meet Data Quality Act standards.</font></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In another, a law firm with corporate clients in asbestos litigation got the EPA to agree to make changes in its booklet that offers warnings and safety advice to brake mechanics.</font></span></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Yet another, filed by a group that receives funding from the conservative<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Scaife Foundation, succeeded in getting the National Institutes of Health to downgrade warnings about the effects of smokeless tobacco. </span>And then there was the atrazine challenge.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">'Manufacturing Uncertainty'&nbsp;</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>That petition, filed by Tozzi, made a two-pronged attack on the effort to regulate atrazine more stringently</b>. The first was to claim that the evidence for atrazine's gender-bending effects in frogs was<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> not fully reproduced </span>by other Syngenta-funded EcoRisk scientists. The second was to claim that the EPA did not have the proper test to prove atrazine had ill effects.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><u>Tozzi said reliance on irreproducible results would violate the Data Quality Act because information that is not reproducible is "not accurate, reliable or useful."</u></b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><u>As evidence of irreproducibility, he pointed to the dozen or so studies <span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">sponsored by Syngenta</span> in addition to Hayes's study. An independent panel of experts convened by the EPA had already expressed exasperation over the conflicting results and mistakes they found in the design and implementation of those studies.</u></b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In at least two of the studies the "control" frogs that were supposed to be atrazine-free were later found to have been in water contaminated with atrazine, an error the scientists said was unintentional. Another set of Syngenta studies was found to be unreliable because<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> 80 to 90 percent of the animals died, apparently as a result of inadequate care.</span></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Essentially what Syngenta-funded scientists did "was produce a number of studies that were purposefully flawed and misleading, and that changed the weight of the evidence," Hayes said.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>While the EPA review also found some flaws in Hayes's studies, his<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> conclusions have been echoed by at least four other independent research teams in three countries.</span></b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>"What a coincidence that everybody can find an effect of atrazine on gonads," Hayes said, "except [those] funded by Syngenta."</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">David Michaels, a professor of occupational and environmental health at George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, said<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> even a good study will appear "not reproducible" if enough bad studies are thrown into the mix.</span></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I call this 'manufacturing uncertainty,' and there is a whole industry to do this," said Michaels, who was the Energy Department's assistant secretary for environment, safety and health under Clinton. "They reanalyze the data to make [previously firm] conclusions disappear -- poof. Then they say one study says yes and the other says no, so we're nowhere."</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Pastoor of Syngenta said there was no conspiracy to create conflicting data.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I don't think it's extending things too far to say atrazine may be one of the best studied chemicals on the face of the earth," he said. "Unfortunately -- or fortunately, depending on how you look at it," other EcoRisk team members "could not replicate what Tyrone had done."</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But Hayes was not the only team member who at least privately agreed that atrazine was having some effect on frogs. Team member <b>James Carr of Texas Tech told Hayes</b> in an e-mail in February 2003: "I agree with you that the important issue is for everyone involved to come to grips with (and stop minimizing) the fact that independent laboratories have demonstrated an effect of atrazine on gonadal differentiation in frogs.<b> There is no denying this."</b></font></div>

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<div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The second prong of Tozzi's attack</b> was that the EPA had not designated tests that would serve as the gold standard of proof of hormone disruption in frogs.</font></div>

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<div><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA does have certain "guideline tests" that can automatically trigger regulation, including some that measure certain health effects of chemicals on wildlife. But not for hormone disruption.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Jennifer Sass, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said<b> Tozzi's position flies in the face of decades of regulatory science. She said the evidence on atrazine's effects was more than convincing by traditional standards. The act, she said, has "hamstrung EPA's ability to express anything that it couldn't back up with a mountain of data. It basically blocked EPA scientists from expressing an expert opinion."</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Hayes said he supports efforts at the EPA to create a gold standard test. However, he said, "when we discover a pattern like this, we know we have a problem. Yes, we should work to validate it perfectly.<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> <b>But in the meantime, let's not keep using 80 million pounds of atrazine per year while we figure it out."</b></span></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Avoiding Tighter Restrictions&nbsp;</font></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The EPA ultimately agreed with Tozzi that the lack of such a test prevented it from regulating atrazine as a hormone disruptor -- a concession many environmentalists found surprising.</font></span></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>No one claims that Syngenta's Data Quality Act petition was single-handedly responsible for giving atrazine's renewed approval the green light. But coming at the end of an arduous 10-year review, the data quality challenge was "the final one-two-three punch," said Sass of the NRDC, which has sued the EPA repeatedly on atrazine.</b></font></span></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">She and others said that once the EPA conceded that it could not regulate atrazine as a hormone disrupter, Syngenta was free to reach the regulatory finish line.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font color="#ff0000">In closed meetings -- details of which the EPA has declined to release -- company representatives and EPA officials worked out a plan to avoid tighter restrictions</font><b><u>. Instead, the plan calls for Syngenta to track atrazine levels in 40 U.S. watersheds over the next three years</u></b> to see how farmers are doing in their efforts to minimize contamination. I<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">f concentrations rise above a level that the company agrees is "of concern," then the company will work with the farmers to try to reduce the levels.</span></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The company will also fund more studies on frogs [kloas?]and reanalyze its data on employee cancers.</b></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The resolution, Sass said, was "basically negotiated instead of going with a scientific rationale."</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Asked why other stakeholders, such as environmental groups or outside scientists, were not allowed to be part of the negotiations as they were in earlier stages of atrazine's review, James Jones, director of the EPA's office of pesticide programs, said<b> opening the meetings</b> "would be incredibly<span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> complicated and would create a disincentive for the company to come to the table."[//range resources frack?]</span></font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exempting Atrazine&nbsp;</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In June, Tozzi filed his latest Data Quality Act petition.</b></font></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This time it was directed at the National Toxicology Program. That is a part of the <b>National Institutes of Health that reviews chemicals to see if they cause cancer.</b></font></span></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The program had announced in the Federal Register that atrazine was among a long list of chemicals that it was considering for examination. In his petition, <b>Tozzi seized on a few sentences from the program's description of its chemical review procedures. He claimed that those sentences contained discrepancies that violated the Data Quality Act.</b></font></span></div>

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<div><span style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Therefore, he wrote, the <font color="#ff0000">program should be barred from reviewing the cancer-causing potential of any chemicals</font>. In particular, the petition noted, atrazine.[ WTF?]</font></span></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Researchers Lucy Shackelford and Julie Tate contributed to this report.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3733-2004Aug15_5.html</font></div>

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<div><a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/13296/title/Debating-Shelby/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/13296/title/Debating-Shelby/</font></a></div>

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<h2 itemprop="name" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-weight: normal; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 1em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Debating Shelby</font></h2><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<p class="summary" itemprop="description" style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Sentiments expressed at a March 12 </span><font color="#ff0000">National Academy of Sciences </font><font color="#333333">workshop suggest that scientists and policy-makers remain very concerned about data access issues related to the now infamous Shelby Amendment. The amendment, a two-line provision added by</font><font color="#ff0000"> Sen. Richard Shelby</font><font color="#333333"> (R-Ala.) to an omnibus appropriations law for fiscal year 1999, subjects federally funded scientific research to requests for data made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).1 Its inclusion sparked a debate between indust</font></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="authors">By&nbsp;<span itemprop="author">Eugene Russo</span></span>&nbsp;|&nbsp;<span class="date">April 2<b>, 2001</b></span></font></p><p class="subHeader" style="margin: 0px; padding: 3px 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 16.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span class="date"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<div class="intro" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 16.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Sentiments expressed at a March 12 National Academy of Sciences workshop suggest that scientists and policy-makers remain very concerned about data access issues related to the<b> now infamous Shelby Amendment. </b>The amendment, a two-line provision added by&nbsp;<span class="bold">Sen. Richard Shelby</span>&nbsp;(R-Ala.) to an omnibus appropriations law for fiscal year 1999, subjects federally funded scientific research to requests for data made under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).¹&nbsp;Its inclusion sparked a debate between industry stakeholders and scientists. The former endorsed the amendment as a means of challenging scientific studies that support costly regulations; the latter expressed concerns about increased paperwork, intellectual property searches by industry and academic competitors, unwarranted access to personal information on research subjects, and even deliberate use of the amendment by industry to reinterpret data and harass researchers.</font></div>

<p style="margin: 14px 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 16.5px;"><b><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">After receiving thousands of public comments, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reinterpreted the amendment, reaffirming FOIA's privacy trade and secrecy protections, and limiting requested data to published or cited research used by the federal government in developing legally binding agency actions.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Thus far, the legislation has not been extensively tested. The National Institutes of Health has granted only four FOIA requests and denied three. The Environmental Protection Agency has received only a handful of requests.</span></font></b>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Many scientists and scientific institutions, including both the NAS and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, saw the OMB's interpretation as a big improvement. Several panelists at the NAS workshop approved as well, but they expressed continued concern. Workshop attendee&nbsp;<span class="bold">E. William Colgazier</span>, CEO of the NAS and the National Research Council, was hoping the OMB agreement would be acceptable to all interested parties. But after hearing discussion at the workshop, he called his outlook "less sanguine."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NAS director&nbsp;<span class="bold">Bruce Alberts</span>&nbsp;said he understood the importance of openness in science, but he called FOIA an inappropriate tool for gaining that access. He worries that anybody can request data as a result of the Shelby amendment--that there's no "need to know" provision. He's particularly concerned that tobacco companies or organizations like the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) will soon use FOIA to harass researchers.&nbsp;<span class="bold">David G. Hawkins</span>, director of the Air and Energy Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said his principle objection was Shelby's applying to only government-funded, and not privately supported, research. Organizations like his, said Hawkins, can't use FOIA to question data presented by industry, though industry can question the underlying data of federally funded research.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#ff0000">The U.S. Chamber of Commerce </font></b><font color="#333333"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">has been among the most outspoken supporters of the original Shelby amendment and critics of the OMB revision. "The bottom line is that the data that needs to be shared is the data that is part of public policy, the data that actually imposes costs," said</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;</span></font><span class="bold" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>William L. Kovacs</b></span><font color="#333333"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, vice president of environment, technology, and regulatory affairs at the organization. He claims that the 4,000 new industry regulations established annually cost the U.S. economy $725 billion.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Kovacs is primarily concerned about the regulatory impact of studies like a Harvard University-led pollution study that was undertaken to measure the morbidity and mortality effects of particulate matter in six U.S. cities. Dubbed the <b>"six-city study," it was a big reason for Shelby introducing his amendment.</b></span></font></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Controlling for age, weight, occupation, education, and other factors, researchers found that the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Northeast cities nearest to</span></span><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);" color="#ff0000"> coal-burning plants</font><font color="#333333"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> had higher mortality rates.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Started in 1973, and continuing for more than two decades, the study was crucial to the EPA's tightening of ambient air quality standards. After business interests were denied access to the study's medical data (researchers cited concerns about the anonymity of the subjects involved), Harvard researchers enlisted an independent, nonprofit corporation called the Health Effects Institute (HEI) to do a data audit. HEI backed the data and the findings.</span></font></b></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Kovacs said that the Chamber of Commerce remains dissatisfied and continues to insist on seeing the data</b>. At the workshop, when asked by&nbsp;<span class="bold">David Korn</span>, senior vice president for biomedical and health sciences research at the Association of American Medical Colleges, what the U.S. Chamber would do with the data if they had it in hand, Kovacs suggested they'd have a team "reevaluate it." "And then what?" asked Korn. Kovacs gave no specifics. Regardless, he implied that a lawsuit challenging the OMB interpretation was a good possibility.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" color="#333333">More controversy could be looming with another, lesser-known amendment referred to as the</font><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <font color="#ff0000">"daughter of Shelby"</font><font color="#333333"> by&nbsp;</font><span class="bold" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Jim J. Tozzi</span><font color="#333333">, a member of the board of advisers at the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness</font></b><font color="#333333"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Also passed as part of an omnibus spending bill, this "data quality" amendment says that the</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> OMB must issue regulations that define minimum thresholds of data quality disseminated by the federal government, and regulations that allow any outside party to petition the government for changing that data.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> According to Tozzi, the amendment requires that data that researchers are presenting to the government, to be used by the government, </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">go through a "quality sieve."</span></font></font></p>

<div class="authorinfo" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 16.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Eugene Russo can be contacted at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:erusso@the-scientist.com" style=" color: rgb(45, 134, 203); text-decoration: none; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;">erusso@the-scientist.com</a>.</font></div>

<div class="refs" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 16.5px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1. N. Halim, "A data access conundrum,"&nbsp;<a href="http://www.the-scientist.com/2000/3/20/13/null" style=" color: rgb(45, 134, 203); text-decoration: none; -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;"><em>The Scientist</em>, 14[6]:13, Mar. 20, 2000</a>.</font></div>

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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p><b><font color="#ff0000" size="4" face="Times New Roman">DATA QUALITY ACT</font></b></p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Publication date:</b><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</font><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Feb. 3, 2004</font><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</font><br style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">SHOULD WHITE HOUSE MUZZLE SCIENTISTS ON HEALTH AND SAFETY?</b><br style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><br style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A firestorm of debate over politicization of science has dogged a White House proposal that could limit the access of reporters and the public to scientific information about environmental health risks.</font></font><p style="line-height: 1.5;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman">An August 2003 proposal by the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) would centralize under OMB the "peer review" of science by almost all government agencies - limiting disclosure of scientific results if OMB raises objections.</font></p><p style="line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The OMB "Bulletin" - similar in some ways to an executive order in that it has largely the force of law for executive branch agencies like EPA, FDA, and the Interior Department - is an extension of authority claimed by the White House under the obscure "Data Quality Act." (See&nbsp;<a href="http://notes.sej.org/sej/tipsheet.nsf/80c21fb7123767b586256cd0000f3f91/5EEF154879EC39D986256DE2007A48E4?OpenDocument" target="blank">Nov. 19, 2003,&nbsp;<em>WatchDog TipSheet</em> article</a>&nbsp;with links to earlier articles). OMB, along with conservative and business groups, has claimed the Data Quality Act gives them authority to prevent "dissemination" of inaccurate information, although the law, still untested in the courts, does not define this term.</font></p><p style="line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Debate over OMB's peer review bulletin has erupted both in a&nbsp;<a href="http://www7.nationalacademies.org/stl/peer_review_transcript.pdf" target="blank">National Academy of Sciences workshop</a>&nbsp;on Nov. 18, 2003, and in the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/2003iq/iq_list.html" target="blank">comments</a>&nbsp;in the formal docket on the regulatory proposal itself. On one side are the industry groups - who want to discredit the science underlying federal regulations that eat into their profits. On the other side are a number of scientists, scientific groups, environmental groups, and right-to-know groups, who fear the White House will use the new power to shape scientific findings to industry's liking.</font></p><p style="line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">John Graham, who heads OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has advanced the proposal under the banner of "sound science." But many commenters on the proposal think it will manipulate science to produce the exact opposite.</font></p><p style="line-height: 1.5;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While the Data Quality Act was quietly slipped into the 2001 appropriations bill without hearings on the representation that it was meant merely to correct technical errors, conservative forces quickly began trying to expand its scope. Since then it has been used by lawyers attempting to censor findings (such as those in the "National Assessment" of climate change impacts) reached by a consensus of scientists.</font></p><p><span style="line-height: 1.5; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The deadline for public comments on the OMB bulletin was Dec. 15, 2003, while federal agencies had until Jan. 14, 2004. In its proposed form, the bulletin was supposed to have taken effect on Jan. 1, 2004, but is unlikely to have any practical force until OMB issues it in final form - an action which could be months away.</font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/2003iq/162.pdf" target="blank">One group of commenters</a>&nbsp;- 20 former top federal regulators (more from Dem than GOP administrations) including former EPA Administrators Carol Browner and Russell Train - called on OMB to withdraw the proposal and let the National Academy of Sciences handle the issue. ?</font></p><p><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Also calling for its withdrawal were Reps. Henry A<b>. Waxman</b>&nbsp;(CA), John F. Tierney (MA), and five other House Democrats.&nbsp;<font color="#ff0000">Waxman's staff maintains a&nbsp;<a href="http://www.house.gov/reform/min/politicsandscience/" target="_blank">Congressional Web site</a>&nbsp;that tracks what it considers the Bush administration's political manipulation of science related to health and the environment.</font></font></span></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On the other side, saying the OMB proposal did not go far enough, were&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">GOP Reps. Jim Gibbons and Chris Cannon (UT), styling himself co-Chair of the "Sound Science Caucus,</span>" a group that declared its intention to form in Oct. 2003, a month after OMB proposed its bulletin, by a core of Western GOPers centered mainly in the<b>&nbsp;Resources Committee. They have gun sights trained on the&nbsp;<font color="#ff0000">"precautionary principle."</font></b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Commenters generally supportive of the OMB bulletin included the<b>&nbsp;<font color="#ff0000">American Petroleum Institute</font>, National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, Industrial Minerals Association, American Farm Bureau Federation, National Cattlemen's<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Beef&nbsp;</span>Association and the Public Lands Council (jointly), Gas Appliance Manufacturers Association, Nickel Development Institute, Styrene Information and Research Center,&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Chlorine</span>&nbsp;Chemistry Council,&nbsp;<font color="#ff0000">American Chemistry Council, CropLife America,</font><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Edison Electric&nbsp;</span>Institute, National Association of Home Builders, the U.S.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers</span>. Some of the groups urged OMB to assume even more control of agency science.</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Commenters opposing</b>&nbsp;or calling for major revisions of the bulletin included the&nbsp;<b>National Academy of Sciences,</b>Association of American Medical Colleges and Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (jointly), Ornithological Council, Federation of American Scientists, American Public Health Association, Ecological Society of America, and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="http://members.sej.org/sej/tipsheet.php?ID=634">&nbsp;http://members.sej.org/sej/tipsheet.php?ID=634</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;supress sci</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><font color="#ff0000">cei bs</font></b>: cato also</font></div>

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<h2 style="margin: 0px 0px 10px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: bolder; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Data Access Law: Promoting Accountability and Privacy</font></h2>

<div class="cei-subtitle" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; height: auto; overflow: hidden;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Point No. 44</font></div>

<div class="cei-authors" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; height: 24px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By&nbsp;<a href="http://cei.org/contributor/james-t-oreilly" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(0, 51, 102);">James T. O'Reilly</a></font></div>

<div class="cei-date" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; height: 24px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">July 14, 1999</font></div></div><div class="node-body" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">

<p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">With the passage of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 1966, our society decided to promote government transparency: what is done in government’s name should be open to public oversight, with specific limited exemptions. Now more than 30 years later, agencies have long-established practices for applying FOIA and its various privacy protections, and we have an extensive case history applying the law. This history shows that courts and agencies have used the law to provide public access and accountability in government, while ensuring that both medical privacy and trade secrets are protected. Indeed, given their decades of experience, federal agencies have shown their sensitivity to medical and personal privacy issues, which has made FOIA access remarkably free of errors that would jeopardize private data.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Federal courts have ruled that FOIA applies to all data in the possession of federal officials, but until recently, it did not apply to research data conducted under federal grants or contracts for research.2 But federal agencies now outsource the gathering of much of the data that underlies critically important public policy decisions. In doing so, this data remains hidden from public view – even when it serves as the basis for regulations. Agencies often require that researchers provide them with the data (which makes it available under FOIA) when agencies contract research. But when outside researchers produce data using federal grant funds, agencies base regulations on such data even when the agency does not take possession of the data.3</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">To rectify this problem and promote accountability, Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) and others included a provision in the<b> FY1999 Omnibus Appropriations </b>bill that applies to FOIA</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font color="#333333"> to data produced under federal grants.4 The law – often called the </font><b><font color="#ff0000">Shelby Amendment</font></b><font color="#333333"> or the data access law – did not change FOIA, the law simply adds grant-funded data to the pool of data to which FOIA applies.</font></span></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Nevertheless, some in the scientific establishment have raised several questions about the application of FOIA to research data. Because of such questions</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">, Rep. George Brown (D-CA) has introduced legislation (H.R. 88) to repeal the data access law, and the House Appropriations Committee voted on an amendment offered by Rep. David Price (D- NC) and James Walsh (R-NY) on whether to delay the standard.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> The amendment failed 33 to 25, but the issue may emerge as an amendment on the House floor.</span></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Will FOIA adequately protect researchers’ commercial trade secrets? Long-established agency practices and case law provide strong protections for such competitive data before patents are issued. These protections will apply to grant-generated data in the same way that they apply to other data collected or produced by the federal government. Specifically, exemption 4 of FOIA reads that the law does not apply to: "trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential."5</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When applying this section, courts follow the National Parks test, which holds that information may be protected under exemption 4 if release of the data would "(1) impair the Government’s ability to obtain necessary information in the future; or (2) to cause substantial harm to the competitive position of the person from whom the information was obtained."6 The first ensures that parties will continue to provide information voluntarily to the government and the second protects the privacy rights of those who provide information under government mandates.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Accordingly, agencies withhold the portions of the data that researchers mark as proprietary commercial data, if researchers can show that (prior to patent issuance) such protection is necessary to prevent competing firms from preempting the patent status. FOIA legitimately exempts public access to this data, so long as there’s a confidential commercial situation in which the product or design is "competing" for competitive advantage. Courts have held that voluntary submissions of valuable data that are "customarily" withheld from the public shall remain confidential.7 And the courts have held that FOIA officers can protect mandatory submissions if there is a showing of actual competition, and the potential exists for substantial harm, e.g. premature dissemination while a patent is pending.8 Moreover, proprietary rights gain protection because agencies closely follow Executive Order 12,600. The Order established the process for marking and notification prior to any disclosure of commercially sensitive records and gives submitters the opportunity to object to release, including time to seek court review of the disclosure decision.9</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Is grant-funded research of non-profits and public-private partnerships protected under FOIA? Courts have ruled that the same proprietary protections apply to this research data. While the law does require the information to be "trade secret" or "financial" information to gain protection, the source need not be a for profit company, but simply a "person."10 Accordingly, in Critical Mass Energy Project v. NRC, the court held that a nuclear industry association’s reports were confidential under FOIA because the information warranted protection under the National Parks test.11 Accordingly, under this precedent, a nonprofit group that generates such data can ask that agency’s FOIA officers to protect their ability to gain future private commercial advantages – under the old law as well as the new data access law.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Historically, FOIA processing staff have done a reasonably good job of withholding commercial records for which such exemptions are justified. Therefore, if a university hopes to license a product it developed with federal funds, it can expect that its claim to justify withholding will be just as well received as are the same claims by the regulated companies for commercial confidentiality protection. Agencies will use the same criteria for evaluating exemption claims.12</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Will FOIA adequately protect the privacy of the subjects of a research study? Disclosure of Medical data requested under the data access law will have to meet the same high privacy standards that are applied to other personal privacy data collected under FOIA. Medical privacy is well understood and protected under both FOIA exemption (6) and the Privacy Act.13 If an agency gets a request for disclosure of data that contains medical information, it will deny access to the patients’ medical records and identifiable personal information. Case law overwhelmingly supports this practice.14</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Furthermore, agency FOIA officers have shown their sensitivity to medical and personal privacy issues, which has made FOIA access remarkably free of errors that would otherwise jeopardize private medical data. Agencies exclude patient names, delete identifying codes, and excise details so that what agencies disclose amply protects personally embarrassing or medically sensitive topics such the AIDS or cancer status of individuals. Agencies like the Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) routinely employ exemption 6 of FOIA to withhold such details, backed by the case law.15 When promulgating the Advisory to agencies on how to apply the data access law, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) acknowledged this consistent pattern of privacy protection.16 The Shelby Amendment links into this system, so that personal privacy interests will receive the same sensitive handling, regardless of source.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Won’t the Shelby Amendment add cost on to researchers who will have to fill numerous FOIA requests? Grantees will only have to provide their data once upon request of the agency. Most grantees will probably never have to provide data. But if they do, they will simply copy it once for the agency, marking the areas they want to keep confidential. Moreover, that law explicitly states that "the agency may authorize a reasonable user fee [on requestors] equaling the incremental cost of obtaining the data,"17 so agencies can properly shift the costs of the FOIA process on to the requester. Hence, the agency bears the processing costs and then charges the costs of searching and screening to the requester.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Will making the data available to the public chill academic freedom? Given that FOIA clearly protects both individual privacy and property rights, applying FOIA to grant research won’t adversely impact the scientific process. If anything, access to this information will encourage healthy peer review, enabling the scientific establishment to weed out unsound research and uphold good research. The existence of flaws in social science data has led at least one court to repudiate a federal rule based on the erroneous study.18 The ability to detect errors is critical when these studies have such profound impacts on public policy. Scientists aspire to do accurate work, and when they receive federal funding, their accuracy has a public dimension, which is served by allowing public access to the data.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Can FOIA requests be used to deliberately disrupt ongoing research? No. The research will be completed at the time of the publication results. The OMB rule implementing the data access law clearly states that the law applies only to published studies. Moreover, the OMB proposed rule also states that it follows the intent of the law, which "According to Congressional floor statements ... is to ‘provide the public with access to federally funded research data’ that is ‘used by the Federal Government in developing policy and rules.’"19 Given that agencies need complete studies on which to base their rules, the law provides access to data from complete studies related to public policy.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Conclusion. Researchers can overcome their fear of the unknown by coming to a better understanding the FOIA process.</b> Unfortunately, FOIA is not well understood by those unfamiliar with its daily operation. In fact, the agencies already effectively screen out medical and other private records as well as shield proprietary documents. The data access law will work when fully implemented because the FOIA process, to which it will simply become a part, already works very well. It properly balances private interests in the data with the public’s interest in seeing the results of studies that the government funds.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For further information on the data access law, please read On Point No. 40 entitled "The Data Access Law: Decreasing Secret Science While Increasing Accountability" (June 7, 1999) By Jennifer Zambone. This On Point can be found on the <b>Competitive Enterprise Institute</b> website at&nbsp;<a href="http://www.cei.org/" title="www.cei.org" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">www.cei.org</a></font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">1 James T. O’Reilly is visiting Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati and is the author of the standard reference treatise, Federal Information Disclosure (West 1977, 2d. Ed. 1992, Supp. 1999). He is also the author of numerous scholarly articles disclosure policy and FOIA’s evolution. Under University of Cincinnati policy, the views expressed in this paper reflect those of the author and do not necessarily reflect that of the University.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">2 Forsham v. Harris, 445 U.S. 169 (1980).</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">3 Supreme Court justices dissenting from the majority opinion in Forsham v. Harris warned that if government-funded information related to the regulatory process is immune from FOIA access, "then government by secrecy must surely return."</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">4 Congressional Record, October 7, 1998, p. H9875, Vol. 144, No. 139; Pub. L. 105-277 Div. A §101(h).</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">5 5 U.S.C. §552(b)(4).</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">6 National Parks and Conservation Assn. v. Morton, 498 F. 2d 765, 790 (D.C. Cir. 1974).</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">7 Critical Mass Energy Project v. NRC, 975 F.2d 871, 879 (D.C. Cir. 1992), cert denied 113 S.Ct. 1579 (1993).</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">8 National Parks, 498 F.2d at 770.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">9 3 C.F.R. 235; also published in the Department of Justice’s FOIA Update (Summer 1997) available at&nbsp;<a href="http://wwwusdoj.gov/oip/foia_updates/Vol_VIII_2/viii2page2.htm" title="http://wwwusdoj.gov/oip/foia_updates/Vol_VIII_2/viii2page2.htm" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(0, 51, 102);">http://wwwusdoj.gov/oip/foia_updates/Vol_VIII_2/viii2page2.htm</a>.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">10 Critical Mass, 975 F.2d at 880.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">11 Id.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">12 See e.g., 21 CFR 20.61, outlining procedures under FOIA section 4 to keep confidential all information that private entities submit to FDA.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">13 5 USC. §552(b)(6); 5 USC §552a et seq.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">14 See e.g. Arieff v. Dept. of Navy, 712 F.2nd 1462 (D.C. Cir., 1983), shielding Senators’ prescription records; Epps v. Dept. of Justice, 801 F.Supp. 787 (D.D.C. 1992), summarily aff’d in part, No. 92-5360 (D.C. Cir. Apr. 29 1993), withholding autopsy photos; Katz v. Natl. Archives & Records Service, 862 F.Supp. 476 (D.D.C1994), preventing the release of x-ray films.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">15 See e.g., Farnsworth v. Proctor and Gamble Co., 758 F.2d. 1545 (11th Cir. 1985), denying an industry request to access names and addresses of women involved in a CDC study.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">16 64 Fed. Reg. 5684 (1999).</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">17 Congressional Record, October 7, 1998, p. H9875, Vol. 144, No. 139; Pub. L. 105-277 Div. A §101(h).</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">18 See e.g., Almay v. Califano, 569 F.2d 764 (D.C. Cir. 1977), vacating a hypoallergenic cosmetics rule.</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">&nbsp;</font>

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">19 64 Fed. Reg. 5684 (1999); Congressional Record, October 9, 1998, p. S12134.</font></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font color="#333333">bl</font>og</font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;"><font style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">'Data Quality' Law Hinders<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Atrazine </span>Regulation&nbsp;</span></b><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><i style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Scaife involved in this junk also</i><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Bush, claims God wanted him to be President, and God wanted him to go to war, ergo God told him to destroy the health, even to death, of the average citizen. And do it by creating a crooked, lieing system that denies proven fact. All for the sake of a few more pennies profit for corporations.</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">8/16/2004&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Copyright 2004 washingtonpost.com&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Things were not looking good a few years ago for the makers of atrazine, America's second-leading weedkiller. The company was seeking approval from the&nbsp;<a href="http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=3833485#" class="kLink" id="KonaLink0" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: static; border: 0px none transparent !important; display: inline !important; font-weight: inherit !important; background-image: none !important;"><font style="position: static; font-weight: inherit !important;"><span class="kLink" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; position: static; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; font-weight: inherit !important; background-image: none;">Environmental&nbsp;</span><span class="kLink" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; position: static; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; font-weight: inherit !important; background-image: none;">Protection</span></font></a>&nbsp;Agency to keep the highly profitable product on the market. But scientists were finding it was disrupting hormones in wildlife -- in some cases turning frogs into bizarre creatures bearing both male and female sex organs.&nbsp;

Last October, concerns about the herbicide led the European Union to ban atrazine, starting in 2005. Yet that same month, after 10 years of contentious scientific review, the EPA decided to permit ongoing use in the United States with no new restrictions.</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Herbicide approvals are complicated, and there is no one reason that atrazine passed regulatory muster in this country. But close observers give significant&nbsp;</span><a href="http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=3833485#" class="kLink" id="KonaLink1" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 19.2000007629395px; position: static; border: 0px none transparent !important; border-image-source: initial !important; border-image-slice: initial !important; border-image-width: initial !important; border-image-outset: initial !important; border-image-repeat: initial !important; display: inline !important; background-image: none !important;"><font style="position: static;"><span class="kLink" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; position: static; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; background-image: none;">credit</span></font></a><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;to a single sentence that was added to the EPA's final scientific assessment last year.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Hormone disruption, it read, cannot be considered a "legitimate regulatory endpoint at this time" -- that is, it is not an acceptable reason to restrict a chemical's use -- because the&nbsp;<a href="http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=3833485#" class="kLink" id="KonaLink2" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: static; border: 0px none transparent !important; display: inline !important; font-weight: inherit !important; background-image: none !important;"><font style="position: static; font-weight: inherit !important;"><span class="kLink" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: blue; position: static; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; font-weight: inherit !important; background-image: none;">government</span></font></a>&nbsp;had not settled on an officially accepted test for measuring such disruption.&nbsp;

Those words, which effectively rendered moot hundreds of pages of scientific evidence, were adopted by the EPA as a result of a petition filed by a Washington consultant working with atrazine's primary manufacturer, Syngenta&nbsp;<a href="http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=3833485#" class="kLink" id="KonaLink3" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: static; border: 0px none transparent !important; display: inline !important; font-weight: inherit !important; background-image: none !important;"><font style="position: static; font-weight: inherit !important;"><span class="kLink" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; position: static; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; font-weight: inherit !important; background-image: none;">Crop&nbsp;</span><span class="kLink" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; position: static; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; font-weight: inherit !important; background-image: none;">Protection</span></font></a>.</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;The petition was filed under the Data Quality Act, a little-known piece of legislation that, under President Bush's Office of Management and Budget,&nbsp;</span><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">has become a potent tool for companies seeking to beat back regulation.</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">The Data Quality Act -- written by an industry lobbyist and slipped into a giant appropriations bill in 2000 without congressional discussion or debate -- is just two sentences directing the OMB to ensure that all information disseminated by the federal government is reliable. But the Bush administration's interpretation of those two sentences could tip the balance in regulatory disputes that weigh the interests of consumers and businesses.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">John D. Graham, administrator of the OMB Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), who has directed implementation of the Data Quality Act, said the law will keep the federal government hewing to "sound science." He said the act, which allows people and companies to challenge government information they believe is inaccurate, is equally accessible to "a wide diversity of interests, both in the business community and in the consumer, environmental and conservation communities."&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">But many consumers, conservationists and worker advocates say the act is inherently biased in favor of industry. By demanding that government use only data that have achieved a rare level of certainty, these critics maintain, the act dismisses scientific information that in the past would have triggered tighter regulation.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">A Washington Post analysis of government records indicates that in the first 20 months since the act was fully implemented, it has been used predominantly by industry. Setting aside the many Data Quality Act petitions filed to correct narrow typographical or factual errors in government publications or Web sites, the analysis found 39 petitions with potentially broad economic,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=3833485#" class="kLink" id="KonaLink4" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 19.2000007629395px; position: static; border: 0px none transparent !important; border-image-source: initial !important; border-image-slice: initial !important; border-image-width: initial !important; border-image-outset: initial !important; border-image-repeat: initial !important; display: inline !important; background-image: none !important;"><font style="position: static;"><span class="kLink" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; position: static; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; background-image: none;">policy</span></font></a><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;or regulatory impact. Of those, 32 were filed by regulated industries, business or trade organizations or their lobbyists. Seven were filed by environmental or citizen groups. Some environmental groups are boycotting the act, adding to the imbalance in its use.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><u style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Among the petitions:&nbsp;

The American Chemistry Council and others challenged data used by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) as it sought to ban wood treated with heavy metals and arsenic in playground equipment.&nbsp;<i>Proven to be a health hazard, but hey, use it anyway.</i>&nbsp;

Logging groups challenged Forest Service calculations used to justify restrictions on timber harvests.&nbsp;

Sugar interests challenged the Agriculture Department and the Food and Drug Administration over dietary recommendations to limit sugar intake.&nbsp;

<i>This is all pure idiocy and government corruption.</i>&nbsp;

The Salt Institute and the U.S. Chamber of&nbsp;<a href="http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=3833485#" class="kLink" id="KonaLink5" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; position: static; border: 0px none transparent !important; display: inline !important; background-image: none !important;"><font style="position: static;"><span class="kLink" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: blue; position: static; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; background-image: none;">Commerce</span></font></a>&nbsp;challenged data that led the National Institutes of Health to recommend that people cut back on salt.&nbsp;

The Nickel Development Institute and other nickel interests challenged a government report on the hazards of that metal.&nbsp;

The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers petitioned the CPSC to retract data that ranked the risk of lint fires in various clothes dryers.&nbsp;</u><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Environmental and consumer groups say the Data Quality Act fits into a larger Bush administration agenda.&nbsp;</span><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">In the past six months, more than 4,000 scientists, including dozens of Nobel laureates and 11 winners of the National Medal of Science, have signed statements accusing the administration of politicizing science.&nbsp;</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><u style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">The White House's heavy editing of a key global-warming report, its efforts to emphasize abstinence rather than condoms in the war against AIDS and its alleged stacking of scientific advisory committees have drawn particular ire. But many scientists and public advocates believe that far more is at stake with the Data Quality Act.&nbsp;</u><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">From their perspective, the act is shifting the authority over the nation's science into the politicized environment of the OMB -- a change, they say, that will favor big business.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">"It's a tool to clobber every effort to regulate," said Rena Steinzor, a professor of law and director of the&nbsp;</span><a href="http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=3833485#" class="kLink" id="KonaLink6" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 19.2000007629395px; position: static; border: 0px none transparent !important; border-image-source: initial !important; border-image-slice: initial !important; border-image-width: initial !important; border-image-outset: initial !important; border-image-repeat: initial !important; display: inline !important; background-image: none !important;"><font style="position: static;"><span class="kLink" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; position: static; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; background-image: none;">Environmental&nbsp;</span><span class="kLink" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; position: static; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; background-image: none;">Law</span></font></a><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;Clinic at the University of Maryland. "In my view, it amounts to censorship and harassment."&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">That's a view that Christopher C. Horner of the free-market Competitive Enterprise Institute -- which has used the act repeatedly to challenge scientific information -- brushed off as "whiny."&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">"Hey, you're making me be accurate," he mocked. "I have no sympathy for that."&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Horner said the act, if anything, has proved less useful than anticipated to groups such as his that seek to minimize government regulation. And figures from the OMB confirm that agencies have in many cases resisted challenges to their scientific findings.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Of the 39 Data Quality Act petitions in The Post's analysis, five have resulted in at least some of the changes sought -- all of them filed by industry interests. Five were denied, five were diverted by the agencies to other bureaucratic avenues, and 24 are pending.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Yet there are signs, Graham acknowledged, that petitioners are becoming more innovative in their use of the act. And petitioners are homing in on agencies whose mission is to protect the environment and public health. The most heavily petitioned are the Environmental</span><a href="http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=3833485#" class="kLink" id="KonaLink7" style="cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; line-height: 19.2000007629395px; position: static; border: 0px none transparent !important; border-image-source: initial !important; border-image-slice: initial !important; border-image-width: initial !important; border-image-outset: initial !important; border-image-repeat: initial !important; display: inline !important; background-image: none !important;"><font style="position: static;"><span class="kLink" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; position: static; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; background-image: none;">Protection&nbsp;</span><span class="kLink" style="border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; position: static; border-top-width: 0px !important; border-top-style: none !important; border-left-width: 0px !important; border-left-style: none !important; border-right-width: 0px !important; border-right-style: none !important; padding: 0px 0px 1px !important; width: auto !important; float: none !important; display: inline !important; background-image: none;">Agency</span></font></a><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Institutes of Health, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Studying Atrazine&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Nearly 80 million pounds of atrazine are sprayed on tens of millions of U.S. acres every year, mostly on corn. It is, according to the EPA, the most prevalent herbicide in ground and surface water, remaining stable and toxic for decades in some environments.</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">It is also a major source of revenue for Syngenta, a Swiss company with U.S. headquarters in <b>Greensboro, N.C.</b>, that sells hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of the chemical every year.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">It has been nearly five decades since atrazine was first "registered" by the EPA -- meaning it was approved for use under certain conditions. Over the years, as more was learned about the chemical's potential toxicity to wildlife and humans, it came under increasing federal scrutiny and regulatory restriction. The number of pounds that farmers can legally apply per acre has progressively been reduced, and users have been required to keep the chemical farther and farther away from wells, lakes and reservoirs.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">For decades, the main concern was cancer. The chemical clearly causes cancer in rats, and&nbsp;</span><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">male workers in Syngenta's production facility in Louisiana have experienced much higher rates of prostate cancer than other men statewide.</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;But studies supported by Syngenta recently convinced the EPA that the mechanism by which atrazine causes cancer in rats probably does not occur in people. (The company said the only reason for the high rate of prostate cancer in its workers is that it has an aggressive screening program that finds cases that would otherwise go undetected.) Studies are ongoing, but the EPA has for now backed off atrazine's cancer threat.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Hermaphrodite frogs, however, have been more difficult to dismiss.&nbsp;</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">For years, evidence has accumulated suggesting that atrazine may scramble hormones in frogs and other animals.&nbsp;</span><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">The European Union has officially declared the chemical an endocrine disrupter.</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;Given those concerns, Syngenta's predecessor company -- Novartis Agribusiness -- decided early in the EPA's review not to leave the question up to government scientists. In 1998, it hired a private risk-assessment service, EcoRisk Inc. of Ferndale, Wash., to arrange experiments on atrazine's environmental impacts.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">EcoRisk, whose past clients include the Chlorine Chemistry Council, Dow Chemical and Ciba-Geigy Corp., in turn hired Tyrone B. Hayes, a professor of integrative biology and an expert in frog development at the University of California at Berkeley. Hayes holds a biology degree from Harvard and a doctorate in amphibian development from Berkeley, where he was tenured at age 30 and became the university's youngest full professor.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">As part of a team of scientists assembled by EcoRisk, Hayes tested the effects of atrazine on tadpoles of African clawed frogs, a popular "lab rat" species for scientists. Male tadpoles raised with no atrazine in the water developed normally. But those exposed to atrazine were "demasculinized." They had smaller larynxes (voice boxes), their testosterone levels were one-tenth of normal levels, and many grew up as hermaphrodites, with a mix of male and female traits.&nbsp;</span><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Moreover, the effects appeared with very small exposures</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;-- just 0.1 parts per billion, or the equivalent of one drop of atrazine in 5,000 40-gallon barrels of water. That's one-thirtieth the level currently allowed in U.S. drinking water.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><u style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">When Hayes sought to publish his work and have the data considered by the EPA, the company told him to run the tests again, said Hayes and Tim Pastoor, a Syngenta vice president. When repeated studies confirmed the worrisome link, Hayes was reminded that his contract forbade him to publish without Syngenta's approval.</u><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;He was told that his data ought to be passed to a company-selected statistician for double-checking.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Hayes quit EcoRisk and repeated his experiments on his own, expanding his work to include other frog species. In one follow-up study of 200 leopard frogs caught in the wild, he found that</span><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;100 percent of males in areas that had been treated with atrazine had abnormal sex organs. No such problems were seen in frogs from untreated regions.</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;He published his results in two prestigious journals, Nature in 2002 and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2003. That ensured the EPA would consider his findings.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">"We showed that these animals are chemically castrated," Hayes said.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Ernest Smith, a developmental biologist at Texas Tech University in Lubbock and a member of the EcoRisk team, denied that EcoRisk or Syngenta tried to bury Hayes's results.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">"I think there were some communications breakdowns," he said.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Smith noted that studies conducted by the other team members had contradicted Hayes's data. Some showed health effects only at higher atrazine doses, while others found no effect at all.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">A special EPA science panel would eventually level stinging criticisms at those studies for their poor design and sloppy implementation. Still, the conflicting results left the atrazine question at a standoff. That is when the company turned to the Data Quality Act -- and Jim J. Tozzi.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">'Working the Regulatory Process'&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Syngenta could not have found a better advocate. Tozzi wrote the Data Quality Act and arranged for its congressional passage after the 2000 elections.&nbsp;

Today he is a Washington lobbyist and head of the Center for Regulatory Effectiveness, a watchdog group that specializes in data quality.</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;Tozzi does not reveal his center's contributors, and the atrazine petition he filed does not have Syngenta's name on it. The petition names only the Kansas Corn Growers Association and the Triazine Network, a coalition formed in 1995 to defend atrazine and related herbicides. But Pastoor, Syngenta's head of human safety, said the company helped finance the petition process through contributions to another of Tozzi's businesses, a lobbying firm called Multinational Business Services.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Tozzi is "the master craftsman when it comes to working the regulatory process," said Ken Cook of the Washington-based Environmental Working Group. "He knows where the sensitive spots are and where to press and leave no fingerprints."&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><u style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Once a self-described "bottom-tier" musician on the steamy New Orleans jazz circuit, Tozzi earned a degree in economics and rose to OMB deputy administrator under Ronald Reagan. Under his directorship, the OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs was the gatekeeper for virtually all proposed regulations dealing with public health and safety. It quickly became known as a bureaucratic "black hole," where proposed regulations went in for review and never came out,</u><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Tozzi was at the OMB when evidence arose in the 1980s that giving aspirin to children with flu symptoms increased the risk of Reye's syndrome, a potentially fatal complication. A federal health agency recommended that aspirin containers bear warnings, but Tozzi said he was not satisfied the evidence was good enough. It took years for activists and Congress to force the labeling issue -- years in which almost 200 children died of Reye's. Today, with labeling, the syndrome is extremely rare.&nbsp;</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><u style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">After leaving the government, Tozzi helped Philip Morris fight mounting evidence of the dangers of secondhand cigarette smoke. That is when he pioneered the tactic of attacking the science behind proposed regulations.&nbsp;</u><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">"The argument that it costs too much to protect people does not sell," said Thomas O. McGarity, a professor at the University of Texas Law School in Austin and president of the Washington-based Center for Progressive Regulation, a network of academics that supports regulatory action to protect health, safety and the environment. "But what does sell is this idea that the science is not good."&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Science is ever evolving and often hobbled by uncertainty, but policymakers have long recognized this and relied on weight-of-evidence arguments in making regulations, according to McGarity, other activists and Clinton administration officials. They point out that DDT was banned despite lingering doubts about its role in the decline of birds. Many other substances, including vinyl chloride and asbestos, also were regulated before their full effects were known.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><u style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Tozzi, believing that the regulatory bar was too low, tried repeatedly to get Congress to pass legislation that would make it easier to challenge the science used to underpin regulations. Then, unable to receive broad congressional support, he crafted legislative language himself and gave it to Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.), a former lobbyist and onetime deputy director of communications for the National Republican Congressional Committee. The wording -- two sentences of 32 short lines -- directed the OMB to issue guidelines "ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information . . . disseminated by Federal agencies."&nbsp;

Emerson slipped the sentences into the 712-page Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act, which became the coming year's omnibus spending bill.</u><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;Under pressure to wrap up the long-delayed budget, President Bill Clinton signed the huge bill on Dec. 21, 2000, nine days after the Supreme Court ruled that George W. Bush was to be the next president.&nbsp;</span><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">It is not clear whether anyone in Congress other than Emerson and Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) knew about the buried language.&nbsp;

"We sandwiched this in between Jerry Ford's library and something else," Tozzi said. "Was it something that did not have hearings? Yes. Is it something that keeps me awake at night? No. Is it something that I would do again, exactly? Yes, you bet your ass I would. I would not even think about it, okay? Sometimes you get the monkey, and sometimes the monkey gets you."&nbsp;</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><i style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">That really says all that needs to be said about our government</i><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Tozzi found even more reason to rejoice as Bush made a pivotal appointment to head the OIRA, Tozzi's old domain within OMB that would now handle data quality: John Graham, a risk-assessment specialist with a history of close ties to regulated industries.

"John Graham came in, and he did an unbelievable job," Tozzi said. "Better than I could have done had I been there myself."&nbsp;</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Politicizing the Process&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><u style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Graham had been the head of Harvard's Center for Risk Analysis, an institution funded primarily by contributions from more than 100 industry and trade association donors. While there, he had amassed a reputation as a skilled critic of the cost of regulation.&nbsp;

In one analysis, conducted with funding from the auto industry, he concluded that it would be a mistake to require side air bags in cars because they would cost $400,000 for every year of life saved. Independent experts reviewing his work found that the figure was actually about $60,000, and Graham had to rewrite his article -- and change his conclusion -- before it could be published in a prestigious medical journal.</u><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">When Bush nominated Graham to head the OIRA, many citizen and environmental groups vehemently objected and more than one-third of the Senate voted no. In his first few months,&nbsp;</span><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Graham sent many near-final regulations back to the agencies that had proposed them, often saying he was not convinced they were worth the cost.&nbsp;

Then he turned to the job of implementing the Data Quality Act.&nbsp;</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">By the fall of 2001, Graham's office had published detailed guidelines for implementing the act. A year later, federal agencies started accepting petitions requesting that they withdraw information that allegedly did not meet OMB standards for "quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity."&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Individual agencies are responsible for reviewing the challenged data and deciding whether they are indeed reliable. But the OMB, a part of the White House, oversees the process closely -- through involvement in the agencies' deliberations and by demanding annual reports describing how agencies dealt with each petition.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">OMB staff members have been providing "extensive assistance to agencies in preparing responses to correction requests," Graham acknowledged. "OMB oversight is critical to make sure that agencies handle these requests in a diligent and consistent manner," he said.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Graham said the OMB's unprecedented foray into science is justified in part because the data in question often serve as a foundation for costly regulation, which the OMB oversees. To fulfill the new role, Graham hired the OMB's first nine career scientists, including six with PhDs.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">The Data Quality Act, or at least something like it, "was absolutely needed," said Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Yet Steinzor, the Maryland environmental lawyer, and other critics complain that the OMB's involvement politicizes the process. The expertise of the handful of scientists hired by Graham, they say, cannot match that of the thousands of experts on agency staffs.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">And while Graham said the OMB still supports weight-of-the-evidence analyses, Steinzor and others contend that the Data Quality Act inherently focuses on individual snippets of data -- each of which is inevitably open to criticism -- instead of on overarching bodies of evidence.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">"You can get lost in the minutiae, and that's exactly where they want you to go," Steinzor said. "They just pick, pick, pick, until you're so addled you can't protect people or the environment."&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">A Tool for Decreasing Regulation&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">A few environmental and public interest groups have tried to use the Data Quality Act. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a Washington-based group that helps federal scientists who believe their data are being suppressed, has filed three petitions under the act.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">One challenged the credibility of a Defense Department document supporting a proposed Army Corps of Engineers project; one contended that the Fish and Wildlife Service had made selective use of data to conclude that hunters should be allowed to shoot rare trumpeter swans; and one charged that Fish and Wildlife had used unsound science to develop "an inadequate recovery plan" for the Florida panther.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">"I'm not sure it is the sharpest tool in the environmental toolbox, but at least it is a tool," said executive director Jeff Ruch, adding that the swan petition lost and the other two are still under review.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Many citizen groups and environmental activists believe the Data Quality Act will always be more useful to those seeking to decrease government regulation. Newly proposed regulations must be justified with evidence, they note, and the act is designed specifically to challenge such evidence.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">"What it really can do best is slow the regulatory process," said Sean Moulton, a senior policy analyst with OMB Watch, a government watchdog group. "And even a simple delay of a rule can mean a huge financial windfall for an industry."&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">In the first 20 months, a handful of petitions -- all from industry -- have been at least partly successful. In one, the Competitive Enterprise Institute had wording added to a multi-agency federal climate change report stating that the report's findings did not meet Data Quality Act standards.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">In another, a law firm with corporate clients in asbestos litigation got the EPA to agree to make changes in its booklet that offers warnings and safety advice to brake mechanics.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Yet another, filed by a group that receives funding from the conservative Scaife Foundation, succeeded in getting the National Institutes of Health to downgrade warnings about the effects of smokeless tobacco. And then there was the atrazine challenge.&nbsp;</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">'Manufacturing Uncertainty'&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">That petition, filed by Tozzi, made a two-pronged attack on the effort to regulate atrazine more stringently. The first was to claim that the evidence for atrazine's gender-bending effects in frogs was not fully reproduced by other Syngenta-funded EcoRisk scientists. The second was to claim that the EPA did not have the proper test to prove atrazine had ill effects.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Tozzi said reliance on irreproducible results would violate the Data Quality Act because information that is not reproducible is "not accurate, reliable or useful."&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">As evidence of irreproducibility, he pointed to the dozen or so studies sponsored by Syngenta in addition to Hayes's study. An independent panel of experts convened by the EPA had already expressed exasperation over the conflicting results and mistakes they found in the design and implementation of those studies.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">In at least two of the studies the "control" frogs that were supposed to be atrazine-free were later found to have been in water contaminated with atrazine,</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;an error the scientists said was unintentional.&nbsp;</span><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Another set of Syngenta studies was found to be unreliable because 80 to 90 percent of the animals died, apparently as a result of inadequate care.&nbsp;

Essentially what Syngenta-funded scientists did "was produce a number of studies that were purposefully flawed and misleading, and that changed the weight of the evidence,"</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;Hayes said.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">While the EPA review also found some flaws in Hayes's studies, his conclusions have been echoed by at least four other independent research teams in three countries.&nbsp;</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">"What a coincidence that everybody can find an effect of atrazine on gonads," Hayes said, "except [those] funded by Syngenta."&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">David Michaels, a professor of occupational and environmental health at George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, said&nbsp;</span><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">even a good study will appear "not reproducible" if enough bad studies are thrown into the mix.&nbsp;</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">"I call this&nbsp;</span><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">'manufacturing uncertainty,' and there is a whole industry to do this,"</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;said Michaels, who was the Energy Department's assistant secretary for environment, safety and health under Clinton.&nbsp;</span><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">"They reanalyze the data to make [previously firm] conclusions disappear -- poof. Then they say one study says yes and the other says no, so we're nowhere."&nbsp;</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Pastoor of Syngenta said there was no conspiracy to create conflicting data.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">"I don't think it's extending things too far to say atrazine may be one of the best studied chemicals on the face of the earth," he said. "Unfortunately -- or fortunately, depending on how you look at it," other EcoRisk team members "could not replicate what Tyrone had done."&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">But Hayes was not the only team member who at least privately agreed that atrazine was having some affect on frogs. Team member James Carr of Texas Tech told Hayes in an e-mail in February 2003:</span><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;"I agree with you that the important issue is for everyone involved to come to grips with (and stop minimizing) the fact that independent laboratories have demonstrated an effect of atrazine on gonadal differentiation in frogs. There is no denying this."&nbsp;

The second prong of Tozzi's attack was that the EPA had not designated tests that would serve as the gold standard of proof of hormone disruption in frogs.&nbsp;</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">The EPA does have certain "guideline tests" that can automatically trigger regulation, including some that measure certain health effects of chemicals on wildlife. But not for hormone disruption.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Jennifer Sass, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Tozzi's position flies in the face of decades of regulatory science. She said the evidence on atrazine's effects was more than convincing by traditional standards.</b><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">&nbsp;The act, she said, has "hamstrung EPA's ability to express anything that it couldn't back up with a mountain of data. It basically blocked EPA scientists from expressing an expert opinion."&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Hayes said he supports efforts at the EPA to create a gold standard test. However, he said, "when we discover a pattern like this, we know we have a problem. Yes, we should work to validate it perfectly. But in the meantime, let's not keep using 80 million pounds of atrazine per year while we figure it out."&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Avoiding Tighter Restrictions&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">The EPA ultimately agreed with Tozzi that the lack of such a test prevented it from regulating atrazine as a hormone disruptor -- a concession many environmentalists found surprising.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">No one claims that Syngenta's Data Quality Act petition was single-handedly responsible for giving atrazine's renewed approval the green light. But coming at the end of an arduous 10-year review, the data quality challenge was "the final one-two-three punch," said Sass of the NRDC, which has sued the EPA repeatedly on atrazine.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">She and others said that once the EPA conceded that it could not regulate atrazine as a hormone disrupter, Syngenta was free to reach the regulatory finish line.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">In closed meetings -- details of which the EPA has declined to release -- company representatives and EPA officials worked out a plan to avoid tighter restrictions. Instead, the plan calls for Syngenta to track atrazine levels in 40 U.S. watersheds over the next three years to see how farmers are doing in their efforts to minimize contamination. If concentrations rise above a level that the company agrees is "of concern," then the company will work with the farmers to try to reduce the levels.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">The company will also fund more studies on frogs and reanalyze its data on employee cancers.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">The resolution, Sass said, was "basically negotiated instead of going with a scientific rationale."&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><u style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Asked why other stakeholders, such as environmental groups or outside scientists, were not allowed to be part of the negotiations as they were in earlier stages of atrazine's review, James Jones, director of the EPA's office of pesticide programs, said opening the meetings "would be incredibly complicated and would create a disincentive for the company to come to the table."&nbsp;</u><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;"><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Exempting Atrazine&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">In June, Tozzi filed his latest Data Quality Act petition.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">This time it was directed at the National Toxicology Program. That is a part of the National Institutes of Health that reviews chemicals to see if they cause cancer.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><span style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">The program had announced in the Federal Register that atrazine was among a long list of chemicals that it was considering for examination. In his petition, Tozzi seized on a few sentences from the program's description of its chemical review procedures. He claimed that those sentences contained discrepancies that violated the Data Quality Act.&nbsp;</span><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><br style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;" /><b style="line-height: 19.2000007629395px;">Therefore, he wrote, the program should be barred from reviewing the cancer-causing potential of any chemicals. In particular, the petition noted, atrazine.&nbsp;</b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></font></p>

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