formaldehyde

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bit header lost

see Kochs

dow

exxon

wheeler pruitt? ryan jackdon cos nancy beck inhofe

clint woods ohio

leukemia, cancer kid killer

SAB

InsideEPA

https://insideepa.com › tsca-news › epa-plaintiff-seek-bar-company-opposing-formaldehyde-deadline

EPA, Plaintiff Seek To Bar Company From Opposing Formaldehyde Deadline

May 22, 2026EPA and an environmental plaintiff are opposing a chemical manufacturer's request to intervene in TSCA litigation in an effort to object to a portion of the suit in which the agency has agreed to a proposed settlement requiring officials to complete its pending formaldehyde evaluation by Dec. 31.

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in a Win for Public Health, EPA Restores Assessment of Toxic Formaldehyde

Action on chemical that causes cancer signals a renewed commitment to scientific integrity

March 11, 2021

Reportsindicate that the Environmental Protection Agency will be moving forward the long-delayed assessment of formaldehyde by the agency’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS). IRIS chemical assessments are the gold standard in identifying and characterizing chemical hazards resulting from chronic exposure. While a draft of the assessment was ready years ago for review, political appointees under the Trump administration first suppressed and then tried to kill off the study, as part of a longstanding effort by the chemical industry to block findings about the dangers of formaldehyde.

“We welcome the news that the IRIS formaldehyde assessment will again move forward after languishing for years under the previous administration. By taking this step, it is clear that the Biden EPA is wasting no time in restoring scientific integrity at the agency and enabling the IRIS program to do its job, which is critical to protect public health from dangerous chemicals,” said Dr. Jennifer McPartland, Senior Health Scientist at Environmental Defense Fund.

Formaldehyde is a known human carcinogen associated with nasopharyngeal cancer and leukemia. There are many sources of the chemical, including certain building materials, insulation and personal care products, and it is also used to make other chemicals. For most Americans, the main pathway of formaldehyde exposure is through inhaling the chemical.

Peer review of the assessment by the National Academies will be a key step in completing the assessment. The National Academies has been at the ready since 2017 when EPA contracted with them to conduct the review.

Formaldehyde is among the chemicals currently undergoing risk evaluation under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). It is vital that EPA promptly finalize the IRIS formaldehyde assessment and use it to inform the TSCA risk evaluation.

For additional background on the assessment and its history, see:

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https://www.desmog.com/2010/09/07/koch-industries-funds-attack-science-linking-formaldehyde-and-cancer/

kevin g

further revelations have come to light since the recent controversial expose in the New Yorkerabout Koch Industries, surrounding New York billionaire David Koch and his company’s involvement in the industry-led effort to downplay the links between formaldehyde and cancer.

In 2008, the president of one of Koch Industry’s subsidiaries sat as the Chair of a pro-Formaldehyde lobby group called the Formaldehyde Council. The subsidiary, Georgia-Pacific, is also a long-time funder of the Formaldehyde Council.

Among other things, the Formaldehyde Council tried to downplay the negative health impacts of formaldehyde in trailers set up for victims of the Katrina disaster.

Learning that he, through his role as senior executive and Chairman of Koch Industries, also bankrolls far-right groups and causes that regularly question President Obama’s U.S. citizenship and deny climate science surely piqued their interest in Koch’s other side.

One baffling conflict mentioned by journalist Jane Mayer in her New Yorkerarticle is David Koch’s generous funding of cancer research, while simultaneously his companies and their lobbying groups fight against federal efforts to regulate the known human carcinogen formaldehyde.

David Koch was diagnosed with prostate cancer in the early 1990s, and since then has become a major financier of cancer research, donating hundreds of millions of dollars to respected cancer research centers such as Sloan-Kettering, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, M.I.T. and Johns Hopkins University, as Mayer notes.

:{:{For his commendable charitable work, David Koch was appointed to the National Cancer Advisory Board, a committee of the US National Cancer Institute, in 2004 by President George W. Bush and remains a member today:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:[pdf].}:

Our research has uncovered very strong ties between Georgia-Pacific, a company co-owned by David Koch through Koch Industries, and a political lobby group called the Formaldehyde Councilthat is involved in efforts to downplay the dangers posed by formaldehyde to human health.

Formaldehyde is classified as a “Group 1 Carcinogen”which is defined as an agent that “is definitely carcinogenic to humans” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and “a complete carcinogen” in the words of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The National Toxicology Program also recently revised its characterization of formaldehyde to that of “known human carcinogen.”

But this determination by top scientists and researchers has not stopped Formaldehyde Council Inc. from trying to convince lawmakers on Capitol Hill that the links between Formaldehyde and cancer are highly overstated. Executive Director of the Formaldehyde Council,Betsy Natz recently wrote a letter[to the President’s Panel on Cancer [pdf]](http://formaldehyde.org/_base/pdf/newsroom/FCI_Statement_on_Presidents-Panel-On-Cancer_Report.pdf)arguing that:

“Despite today’s statement, scientists agree that formaldehyde does not pose a health risk at typical levels of exposure. Americans should feel confident in the knowledge that formaldehyde-based products are safe.”

On their website, the Formaldehyde Council tries to downplay the powerful carcinogen through slick key messaging like,

“the bottom line is that formaldehyde doesn’t stick around very long so it doesn’t accumulate in the human body or in the environment.”

In 2009, Natz tried to downplay concerns regarding dangerous levels of Formaldehyde detected in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) trailers provided to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Natz told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that,

“Americans should feel confident in the knowledge that formaldehyde-based products, such as composite wood panels produced and certified to be low in emissions by domestic manufacturers, are safe.”

According to IRS filings [pdf], the Formaldehyde Council was formed in 1995 with the mission to,

“encourage accurate scientific evaluation of Formaldehyde and Formaldehyde-based materials and to communicate sound scientific information relating to the uses, benefits and sustainability of these products.”

The Council’s operating budget in 2008 was $2.7 million and it reported $2 million in “membership dues and assessments.”

David Koch’s company, Georgia-Pacific, one of the largest manufacturers of Formaldehyde in the United States, is listed on the Formaldehyde Council’s website as a “member” since at least 2004.

In IRS filings for 2008, Richard Urschel, the President of Georgia-Pacific’s chemical division is listed as the Chair of the Formaldehyde Council. In 2006, Urschel served as the Council’s Vice-Chair. According to the Council’s stated by-laws only “Tier 1” members can have a place on the Board of Directors, and in order to become a Tier 1 member a company must pay $200,000 in annual dues to the Council.

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kid killer:

https://theintercept.com/2021/08/19/formaldehyde-leukemia-epa-trump-suppressed/

intercept 921

Sharon Lerner

no lnx mANY DOC

a 2017 DRAFT assessment of formaldehyde that was suppressed by the Trump administration found that the chemical causes myeloid leukemia, according to several sources familiar with the document. The draft assessment concludes that 1 microgram of formaldehyde in a cubic meter of air increases the number of myeloid leukemia cases by roughly 3.5 in 100,000 people, more than three times the cancer risk in the assessment now in use. The EPA currently regulates formaldehyde using an outdated set of calculations, finalized in 1991, based on the risk of nasopharyngeal cancer. If the nasopharyngeal cancer and myeloid leukemia risks are combined, the cancer risk could be 4.5 times higher than the current value.

Although the suppressed assessment, produced by a division of the Environmental Protection Agency known as the Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS, has grave implications for public health, Trump administration officials, including former EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, refused to allow the agency to release the assessment, several sources told The Intercept.

If the Biden EPA permits IRIS to finalize the assessment, which is among the most controversial in the agency’s history, other branches of the EPA will likely set regulatory limits based on the new risk value. IRIS values are used to determine safety thresholds for the amounts of the chemical permitted in air and water, emissions caps from industrial facilities, and guidance for cleanups. Such thresholds also alert exposed people to the dangers they face.

“This is a big, big deal. It could trigger significant interest by the personal injury bar,” said Bob Sussman, who served as the senior policy counsel to the EPA administrator during the Obama administration and deputy EPA administrator under President Bill Clinton. “Even without including the leukemia, the risk is a significant one. With the leukemia, it’s certainly a very significant public health concern.”

Even using the much lower, outdated cancer risk number set in 1991, formaldehyde is already the greatest source of nationwide cancer risk from industrial air pollutants,estimated to cause roughly 18 of the 32 cancers in every 1 million people in the U.S. that are caused by toxic pollutants in the air, according to the EPA’s own data. If the risk values are increased by a factor of four or more, the reported cancer risk from formaldehyde will go up accordingly, revealing previously unrecognized cancer hot spots around the country.

Formaldehyde, mainly used to make plywood, particleboard, and glues, is also a hazard for millions of workers who are exposed to the chemical through the production of resins, wood composite and furniture production, plastics manufacturing, paper production, embalming, foundry work, fiberglass production, building construction, agriculture, firefighting, and the teaching of biology, among other occupations. The general public is exposed to formaldehyde through tobacco smoke, cosmetics, food and water, as well as “off-gassing” from consumer goods, construction materials, and furniture. In 2019, 662 facilities reported releasing 47.7 million pounds of formaldehyde.

In addition to looking at the chemical’s relationships to nasopharyngeal cancer and leukemia, the draft assessment also factored in evidence that formaldehyde causes decreased lung function, allergic conditions, reproductive and developmental toxicity, and sensory irritation.

In part because formaldehyde is so pervasive, a wide range of business interests have attempted to prevent the EPA from finalizing the assessment and publicly acknowledging the connection to leukemia. Until now, the EPA has kept the contents of its assessment under tight wraps. The leaked information provides a window into how the science and regulation around the chemical will finally be updated.

“Just knowing that the IRIS assessment acknowledges that formaldehyde causes myeloid leukemia is huge, regardless of what the value is,” Jennifer McPartland, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, said after being told about the main findings of the draft assessment. “But the numbers tell you even more. They set the tone for how the agency will proceed with risk management.”

Assessment Was “Ready to Go”

While the EPA has claimed in court that the formaldehyde assessment did not exist in a form that allowed it to be shared — and used that argument to refuse to release it in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the environmental whistleblower group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER — former EPA officials told The Intercept that the completed assessment not only existed but that it had also been prepared for release in early 2018.

“We had the document ready to go for review within the agency, but we were not allowed to proceed,” said Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, former director of the EPA Office of Research and Development, who retired from the agency in July.“Political leadership did not want me to move it forward.”

Wheeler, the former EPA administrator, was among the Trump appointees who were involved in suppressing the calculation of the myeloid leukemia risk, according to one former agency official who worked on the assessment. “The administrator would not allow us to put out that number,” the former official said, going on to explain how members of the administrator’s office, particularly his chief of staff Ryan Jackson, kept an unusually close eye on the formaldehyde assessment.

“Normally when we’re doing an assessment, they [the staff of the administrator’s office] don’t have access to the guts of it, because it’s deliberative. But they would demand that we give them pieces of the assessment, including what literature we were looking at for dose responses,” the former official said, referring to the precise relationship between exposure and cancer risk. “Then they would share it with ACC,” an acronym for the American Chemistry Council. Although the former official provided no direct evidence of the administrator’s office sending out the segments of the assessment, they said the actions of the trade group made it clear that it had reviewed the unpublished material.

“All of a sudden, after we gave the information to Ryan Jackson, there would be all this targeted activity by ACC that would basically dismiss or disprove whatever mathematical methodology that we were going to be using even though it hadn’t been published yet,” said the former official. If the EPA did share the information with the trade group, the report would be subject to release under FOIA and would not be exempt under the “deliberative process privilege,” contrary to the agency’s claim in the PEER lawsuit.

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 26: Environmental Protection Agency Chief of Staff Ryan Jackson (R) listens to Administrator Scott Pruitt testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Environment Subcommittee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill April 26, 2018 in Washington, DC. The focus of nearly a dozen federal inquiries into his travel expenses, security practices and other issues, Pruitt testified about his agency's FY2019 budget proposal. (]

Orme-Zavaleta confirmed that Jackson, who now works for the National Mining Association, played a key role in preventing the assessment from moving forward. “The ACC was in contact with Ryan a lot,” she said.

Asked about his role in the formaldehyde assessment, Jackson stated, “Following enactment of the Lautenberg Act, EPA placed formaldehyde though the risk evaluation required in that new law so formaldehyde could be directly regulated by EPA,” referring to the Trump administration’s decision to add formaldehyde to the list of chemicals to be evaluated under the Toxic Substances Control Act. That assessment has also yet to be completed or released. Jackson also stated that “I’m not contributing to anonymous rumors.”

Andrew Wheeler declined to comment. In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the ACC wrote that the group “has never had access in any manner to unpublished findings from the formaldehyde draft IRIS assessment.”

Orme-Zavaleta also pointed to other Trump appointees who she said were apparently involved in suppression of the document. Among them was thedirector of the Office of Air and Radiation, Bill Wehrum, whose input Orme-Zavaleta needed to move the assessment forward. “A couple times we set up briefings for Bill Wehrum. But they canceled those briefings, and I was not given the OK to further the review within the agency.”

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Dunlap Koch email to EPA

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David Dunlap, who served as deputy assistant administrator in the EPA’s Office of Research and Development, also helped suppress the assessment, said Orme-Zavaleta. “When we were in the process of coming up with the priority list for IRIS assessments, a lot of those discussions were held during ‘politicals-only’ meetings, so I wasn’t there. But [Dunlap] was, he was our representative. Formaldehyde was on the list of chemicals being considered. And in November, I got back a short list of the chemicals IRIS would assess, and formaldehyde was not part of it,” she said. Dunlap worked for Koch Industries and defended formaldehyde until shortly before he joined the Trump administration in 2018.Dunlap did eventually recuse himself from work on the assessment, though only after formaldehyde was removed from the list of chemicals IRIS would be allowed to assess, according to Orme-Zavaleta. “I only received a copy of his recusal letter after I got the list of chemicals.”

David Dunlap declined to comment on the matter.

“EPA lied to us. And they lied to the court.”

Presented with information from Orme-Zavaleta and others about the completion of the assessment in 2017,PEER attorney Kevin Bell expressed anger and frustration. Bell oversees 3-year-old litigation against the EPA over the group’s Freedom of Information Act request for the assessment. In that case, the agency has insisted that it didn’t have a completed version of the document that it could publicly release.

“EPA lied to us. And they lied to the court,” said Bell. “They said, ‘We just can’t give you anything like this, because it would be totally full of all sorts of irrelevant things, so that it would totally undermine the deliberative process,’ whereas in reality they had a fully drafted document that was all set to go.”

The EPA declined to comment on Bell’s statement but did provide a broader response, saying that “EPA is committed to ensuring that science is at the backbone of everything the Agency does to deliver on our public health and environmental protection mission, and that we operate in a transparent manner to ensure public trust.” Bill Wehrum did not respond to requests for comment.

Decades of Industry Influence

The suppression of the most recent draft assessment follows many years of interference with government science on formaldehyde. IRIS began updating its original assessment of the chemical in 1997 but almost immediately ran into resistance from industry, particularly around the link to leukemia. A group called the Formaldehyde Council, Inc., which represented companies that used the chemical, began challenging the numbers in the assessment and came up with a cancer risk that was thousands of times lower than the EPA’s. Political appointees in the George W. Bush administration also helped industry postpone the release of the updated document. A 2008 Government Accountability Office report documented those delays and lamented the public health implications of having to rely on an IRIS assessment that was then 18 years old.

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Yet that first assessment, completed three decades ago, is still guiding regulation. In the intervening years, both the International Agency on Cancer Research, or IARC, and National Toxicology Program, whose chemical reviews don’t have the regulatory weight of IRIS assessments, classified formaldehyde as a known human carcinogen and recognized it as a cause of leukemia. In 2010, the EPA released a draft of the updated assessment, which also found that formaldehyde caused leukemia, but did not finalize it. The ACC was harshly critical of that draft, and the agency sent the report to the National Academy of Sciences for peer review. The external agency confirmed its finding that formaldehyde causes cancer and encouraged the agency to quickly rewrite and reissue its report. But the EPA didn’t complete that work until 2016.

Vincent Cogliano, who directed the IRIS program from 2010 to 2017, said the delays during those years weren’t due to political or industry pressure. “We were really trying to get a very objective assessment released,” said Cogliano, who attributed the slow progress on the assessment in that period to the heavy workload of the small program. While Cogliano characterized some of the science around formaldehyde as complex, he said that no one on the IRIS staff disagreed about the relationship between myeloid leukemia and formaldehyde. “When I left the IRIS program in January 2017, I thought that it was ready to be released,” he said.

And yet more than four years later, the EPA has yet to release the updated IRIS assessment.

“It’s very frustrating,” said Linda Birnbaum, who directed the National Toxicology Program from 2009 to 2019. “Here there is evidence that IARC said that formaldehyde was a known human carcinogen. And we said it was a known human carcinogen and that the data was clear. And more data has come out since then, especially from the National Cancer Institute, yet no word from EPA.”

Formaldehyde was added back on to the list of chemicals being assessed on the IRIS public calendar in March. According to an EPA spokesperson, the IRIS Program anticipates releasing the draft assessment of formaldehyde for public comment and external peer review by September 30, 2022. The agency is widely expected to ask the National Academy of Sciences to weigh in on how and whether the agency should combine the cancer risk estimates for myeloid leukemia and nasopharyngeal cancer.

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Orme-Zavaleta said that no one in the Biden EPA expressed hesitation about resuming work on it when she raised the issue in the first weeks of President Joe Biden’s tenure. “I asked them several times. I said, ‘I’m going to unsuspend formaldehyde, are you good with that?’ And every time, everybody said, ‘Fine, do it,’” she said. “It is moving!”

Despite the assurances, those intimately familiar with the history of formaldehyde remain guarded in their optimism that the EPA is finally about to update the assessment of one of the most significant and widespread carcinogens in the U.S.

“For decades, up to now, the industry has pretty much managed to put out all the fires,” said Sussman. “But perhaps something really significant might be about to happen.”

Update: August 19, 2021

This article has been updated with a comment from the American Chemistry Council.

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801 N QUINCY ST STE 700 ARLINGTON VA 22203-1730

Betsy Natz

Chief Executive Officer at Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers Association

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Formaldehyde Council

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About FCI

About FCI

The Formaldehyde Council, Inc. is a non-profit association that represents the leading producers and users of formaldehyde in the United States. Formed in January 2004, FCI was created principally to address the health effects of formaldehyde through the conduct of research and to communicate the results of the research to federal, state and international agencies.

FCI's mission is to encourage accurate scientific evaluation of formaldehyde and formaldehyde-based materials and to communicate sound scientific information relating to the uses, benefits and sustainability of these products.

FCI Staff

Betsy Natz, Executive Director Betsy Natz is the Executive Director of the Formaldehyde Council, Inc. Natz has been with FCI since it was formed in January 2004. From 2002 to 2003, Natz served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of External Relations (OER) — Office of the Commissioner — at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

For nearly 14 years she served as the founding Executive Director of the StyreneInformation and Research Center (SIRC). She planned and directed activities with external groups including the White House and its Offices of Science and Technology Policy, Management and Budget, and Policy Development; Congress, state agencies, industry, consumer groups and other special interest groups and public health community.

In addition she has worked on Capitol Hill for two United States Senators, Frank Murkowski (R-AK) and, on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation under Senator JackDanforth (R-MO).

Natz also worked for President Ronald Reagan and Smith Bucklin & Associates,a trade association management firm. She received a Bachelors of Science in Political Science from the American University.

Sarah Macedo, Manager, Public Affairs Sarah Macedo received her undergraduate degree in Marketing from the University of Rhode Island. Before joining FCI in mid-2007 Sarah served as Industry Meeting Coordinator at Freeman and was an independent event coordinator.

About FCI

Irritation Studies

Formaldehyde can be irritating to the eyes, nose and throat, but for most people, irritation is temporary and reversible...

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Cancer Studies

Concern about whether formaldehyde might cause cancer in humans arose in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when it was discovered that high levels of formaldehyde (6-15 parts per million) caused nasal cancer in laboratory rats...

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Asthma Studies

Formaldehyde exposure has not been demonstrated to cause bronchial asthma. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry states that investigations into this possibility have provided very limited evidence of an association.

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Reproduction/Childrens' Development Studies

Formaldehyde is not considered to have reproductive or developmental effects on humans. A comprehensive review of the scientific literature concluded...

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Formaldehyde Council, Inc. (FCI) is a group of leading formaldehyde producers and users. FCI is dedicated to promoting the responsible use and benefits of formaldehyde and ensuring its accurate scientific evaluation. Learn More

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-senator-david-vitter-battled-formaldehyde-link-to-cancer

when Sen. David Vitter persuaded the EPA to agree to yet another review of its long-delayed assessment of the health risks of formaldehyde, he was praised by companies that use or manufacture a chemical found in everything from plywood to carpet.

As long as the studies continue, the EPA will still list formaldehyde as a "probable" rather than a "known" carcinogen, even though three major scientific reviews now link it to leukemia and have strengthened its ties to other forms of cancer. The chemical industry is fighting to avoid that designation, because it could lead to tighter regulations and require costly pollution controls.

"Delay means money. The longer they can delay labeling something a known carcinogen, the more money they can make," said James Huff, associate director for chemical carcinogenesis at the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences in the Department of Health and Human Services.

Timeline: Formaldehyde's Convoluted Review	Timeline: Formaldehyde's Convoluted Review
1989	The first health assessment of formaldehyde is written by the EPA.
1998	The EPA begins updating the assessment.
2004	Despite preliminary findings from a National Cancer Institute study linking formaldehyde to leukemia, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., persuades the EPA to delay a planned revision of the formaldehyde health assessment.
May 2009	The National Cancer Institute releases new results in its ongoing health study, showing that workers exposed to a higher amount of formaldehyde had a 78 percent greater risk of leukemia than those exposed to lower amounts.
June 29, 2009	Sen. David Vitter, R-La., urges the EPA to let the National Academy of Sciences review the formaldehyde assessment, a process that usually requires more time and money than the EPA's own external peer review panel.
September 2009	The International Agency for Research on Cancer and the National Toxicology Program, a U.S. organization, both conclude that formaldehyde exposure is linked to leukemia.
Sept. 23, 2009	Vitter says he will delay the nomination of a senior EPA official until the EPA agrees to send the formaldehyde assessment to the National Academy. The EPA says the chemical doesn't need more review.
Dec. 23, 2009	The EPA agrees to Vitter’s demand, and Vitter releases his hold on the EPA nominee. The EPA says it asked the National Academy to move quickly, so the review could be done in about the same amount of time it would have taken for an internal review.

The EPA’s chemical risk assessments are crucial to protecting the public’s health because they are the government’s most comprehensive analysis of the dangers the chemicals present and are used as the scientific foundation for state and federal regulations. But it usually takes years or even decades to get an assessment done, or to revise one that is outdated. Often the industry spends millions on lobbying and on scientific studies that counter the government’s conclusions.

The EPA has been trying since 1998 to update the formaldehyde assessment, which was first written in 1989. But the agency’s efforts have repeatedly been stalled by the industry and Congress.

This time, the resistance came from Vitter, a Republican senator from Louisiana, where, ironically, thousands of Hurricane Katrina victims say they suffered respiratory problems after being housed in government trailers contaminated with formaldehyde. Last year Vitter blocked the nomination of a key EPA official until the agency agreed to ask the National Academy of Sciences to weigh in on the assessment. Vitter’s spokesman, Joel DiGrado, told the media that "because of the FEMA trailer debacle, we need to get absolutely reliable information to the public about formaldehyde risk as soon as possible."

Vitter’s ties to the formaldehyde industry are well known. According to Talking Points Memo, his election campaign received about $20,500 last year from companies that produce large amounts of formaldehyde waste in Louisiana. But ProPublica found that Vitter actually took in nearly twice that amount if contributions from other companies, trade groups and lobbyists with interests in formaldehyde regulation are included. Among those contributors is Charles Grizzle, a top-paid lobbyist for the Formaldehyde Council, an industry trade group that had long sought a National Academy review of the chemical.

Congress stalled the formaldehyde risk assessment once before. In 2004, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., persuaded (PDF) the EPA to delay it, even though preliminary findings from a National Cancer Institute study had already linked formaldehyde to leukemia. Inhofe insisted that the EPA wait for a more "robust set of findings" from the institute.

Koch Industries, a large chemical manufacturer and one of Inhofe’s biggest campaign contributors, gaveInhofe $6,000 that year. That same year Koch bought two pulp mills from Georgia-Pacific, a major formaldehyde producer and one of the world’s largest plywood manufacturers. The next year Koch bought all of Georgia-Pacific.

The "more robust" findings that Inhofe asked for weren’t released until five years later – in May 2009 – and they reinforced the 2004 findings. Of the nearly 25,000 workers the National Cancer Institute had tracked for 30 years, those exposed to higher amounts of formaldehyde had a 37 percent greater risk of death from blood and lymphatic cancers and a 78 percent greater risk of leukemia than those exposed to lower amounts.

The Formaldehyde Council immediately released a statement disputing those findings and calling for a full review by the National Academy of Sciences. Such an evaluation could take as long as four years, according to an EPA spokesperson.

But this time it wasn’t Inhofe who stepped in on the industry’s behalf, but Vitter, who like Inhofe sits on the Environment and Public Works Committee.

On the day the study came out, Grizzle, the Formaldehyde Council lobbyist, donated $2,400 to Vitter’s re-election campaign, the maximum an individual can give to a federal candidate in a single election cycle. Grizzle didn’t respond to phone calls and e-mails asking for comment for this story.

Grizzle started his own lobbying firm in 1993, after serving as an EPA assistant administrator in the late 1980s. He joined George W. Bush’s transition team in 2001, and raised more than $500,000 for Bush’s 2004 campaign, earning the title of fundraising "pioneer." A Philadelphia Inquirer investigation found that Grizzle used his friendship with Bush aide Karl Rove to help get Stephen Johnson the job as assistant administrator for the Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances at EPA. When Johnson went on to lead the EPA, he changed the risk assessment system so other federal agencies could comment more frequently and forcefully on the EPA’s science, a move that prolonged the process. In the waning days of the Bush administration, Johnson asked the National Academy of Sciences to do a full review of the formaldehyde assessment.

DiGrado, Vitter’s spokesman, didn’t respond to questions about Vitter’s ties to the industry. Instead, he sent ProPublica copies of two letters. One showed that three Democratic lawmakers also wanted the review. The other letter was written by an EPA official in the final week of the Bush administration, saying that the agency would "seek input" from the academy.

Several public health experts interviewed by ProPublica think the industry’s goal is to delay the assessment as long as possible and to undermine the credibility of the EPA’s chemical risk assessment program.

"This gives the appearance of another congressman being more interested in industry than the health of the public," said Dr. Peter Infante, a former director of the Office of Carcinogen Identification and Classification at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. "The public should not think that because a government document is undergoing NAS review, that that review is going to be competent."

Other public health experts point to the National Academy’s recent review of the EPA’s assessment of perchloroethylene, or PCE, as an example of how additional studies can drag out the assessment process.

PCE is used in dry cleaning and is found in high concentrations at military bases. Like formaldehyde, it has been linked to leukemia, and the EPA has been trying to update the chemical’s assessment since 1998. In 2008 the agency submitted its findings to the National Academy, and in February the academy sent the assessment back to the EPA with a long list of questions. Although the academy agreed with the EPA’s conclusion that PCE was a "likely" carcinogen, it suggested that the safety standards should be significantly weaker than those the EPA had proposed. The EPA is now responding to the academy’s comments.

Democrats in Congress and public health watchdogs have criticized the academy in the past for being slanted toward industry, because some of the scientists who serve on its review panels have written studies paid for by chemical companies whose products they are evaluating. An academy spokeswoman said it thoroughly vets its panelists and has strict financial conflict of interest rules.

The Road to Review

Vitter began his push for a National Academy review of formaldehyde in a June 29 letter to the EPA. It included a list of questions about the formaldehyde assessment and urged the EPA to ask the National Academy to weigh in on it, according to documents ProPublica obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

The EPA responded on July 8, defending its plan to have the assessment reviewed by its own external peer review panel, the Scientific Advisory Board. The letter noted that the advisory board could do the review in 12 to 16 months for about $200,000, while the average National Academy review takes 18 to 24 months and costs $800,000 to $1 million.

In September, two more major scientific reviews raised concerns about the dangers of formaldehyde. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, a division of the World Health Organization, concluded it had enough evidence (PDF) to show that formaldehyde exposure can cause leukemia. And the National Toxicology Program changed its categorization of formaldehyde from "reasonably anticipated to be a carcinogen" to "known carcinogen."

But Vitter continued pressuring the EPA for more review.

On Sept. 23, he confirmed to reporters that he had placed a hold on the nomination of Paul Anastas, the Obama administration’s choice to head the EPA’s Office of Research and Development. He said he wouldn’t release the hold until the EPA agreed to send the formaldehyde assessment to the National Academy. To smooth the way for that review, he tried to add an amendment (PDF) to an EPA appropriations bill mandating that the agency set aside $1 million for a National Academy review. Grizzle, the Formaldehyde Council lobbyist, worked to get support for the amendment, according to one of his lobbying disclosure forms (PDF). (The amendment wasn’t included in the final bill.)

On Sept. 24 EPA chief Lisa Jackson met with Vitter and offered a compromise: She would ask the National Academy for its advice on the formaldehyde assessment.

That same day, an EPA spokeswoman told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that the chemical didn’t need more review, and that the EPA was ready to begin finalizing its assessment.

"This is not the time for more delay," said EPA spokeswoman Adora Andy.

But Vitter didn’t budge.

In November, a political action committee created by the American Chemistry Council, whose members include formaldehyde producers Hexion Specialty Chemicals and DuPont, gave Vitter a $2,500 campaign contribution, in addition to the $1,500 it had given him earlier in the year. On Dec. 2, Koch Industries gave Vitter’s political action committee a check for $5,000. On Dec. 7, Grizzle gave Vitter (PDF) $200. On Dec. 17, the Society of the Plastics Industry, which represents formaldehyde manufacturers BASF and DuPont, hosted a fundraiser for Vitter at its headquarters, recommending donations of $1,000 per person.

On Dec. 23, Vitter got what he wanted. Jackson agreed to send the study to the National Academy. But in a letter Jackson sent to the Formaldehyde Council that day, she indicated it would not be the exhaustive study the industry had pushed for but would instead be done under a "compressed timeframe." Dr. Peter Preuss, who heads the EPA’s chemical risk assessment program, said it will likely be completed in a year.

Vitter removed his hold on Anastas’ nomination on Christmas Eve, and the Formaldehyde Council released a statement praising his work.

"Overcoming the agency's intransigence in engaging NAS on formaldehyde would have been impossible without the timely intervention of U.S. Senator David Vitter," Betsy Natz, the council’s executive director, said in the news release. The statement said Jackson had contacted the council directly to notify it of the news.

Last month the National Academy began gathering public comments about the 13 scientists it has selected for the formaldehyde panel. The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group, has already written a letter raising questions about two of the candidates. One worked for the Hamner Institute, an industry-supported laboratory that lists the Formaldehyde Council as one of its sponsors. The other worked for more than a decade at Dow Chemical, which is a member of the Formaldehyde Council and has contributed to Vitter’s campaigns.

On March 24, Grizzle, the Formaldehyde Council lobbyist, co-hosted a fundraiserfor Vitter at the Capitol Hill Club, an exclusive Republican gathering place. The suggested donation was $1,000 per person.

https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-epa-2647067465.html

toxic 10 epa rollbacks ewg

From the beginning, the Trump administration has aggressively slashed environmental regulations. A New York Times analysis identified 100 environmental protections that have been reversed or are in the process of getting rolled back. The administration's record on chemical safety has been especially hazardous for the health of Americans, especially children.

One year into President Trump's term, EWG detailed how the Trump administration has stacked the Environmental Protection Agency with industry lawyers and lobbyists, undermined worker safety and cooked the books on chemical safety assessments. Midway through his second year, we reported how the EPA reversed a ban on a brain-damaging pesticide, delayed chemical bans and killed a rule to protect kids from toxic PCBs in schools. Last year, we reported that the EPA had rescinded safety rules at chemical plants, rubber-stamped untested new chemicals and silenced researchers.

As Trump's first term nears its end, things are even worse. Here are 10 more ways the Trump administration has continued to make life more toxic for Americans.

1. Failed to Aggressively Regulate Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’

The toxic fluorinated chemicals known as PFAS contaminate more than 2,200 sites across the nation. Because they never break down in the environment, PFAS are often called "forever chemicals." They build up in our bodies and are linked to cancer, reproductive and developmental harms and reduced effectiveness of vaccines. Even though the EPA has known about the risks from PFAS chemicals since at least 1998, they remain virtually unregulated.

In February 2019, the EPA released a toothless PFAS "action plan" that lacked deadlines for action and failed to address the use of PFAS in everyday products, contamination from PFAS air emissions or disposal of PFAS waste, among other concerns. A year and a half later, key goals from the plan, including regulating PFAS under the Superfund law and setting drinking water standards, remain unfulfilled.

When Congress stepped in and sought to designate PFOA and PFOS – the two most notorious and well-studied PFAS – as "hazardous substances" and to set deadlines for agency action, Trump threatened a veto. Trump's EPA also weakened a rule designed to regulate PFAS in consumer products.

2. Allowed a Rocket Fuel Chemical to Stay in Drinking Water

Perchlorate is a component of rocket fuel that also frequently contaminates drinking water sources. Perchlorate can interfere with thyroid function, which can also harm childhood brain development.

Almost a decade ago, the EPA determined that these harms warranted regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The agency then dragged its feet for years. In 2016, the Natural Resources Defense Council sued to force the EPA to finally set a legal limit for perchlorate in drinking water. In a court-approved consent decree, the EPA agreed to propose a standard by October 2018 and finalize it by 2019. However, the EPA sought extensions and failed to meet these deadlines.

The EPA finally proposed a drinking water standard in June 2019 but also suggested that it might not regulate perchlorate after all. A year later,the EPA withdrew its decision to regulate perchlorate in drinking water.

3. Allowed Scores of New Chemicals, Including New Toxic PFAS, Onto the Market Without Adequate Oversight

In 2016, Congress substantially changed the way new chemicals are approved under the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA.

Under the old law, chemicals were frequently approved by default, often without any health and safety information. As a result, unsafe chemicals were allowed to be used for years or decades before the health and environmental hazards came to light. Inadequate oversight of new chemicals can also lead to regrettable substitution – when chemicals are finally found to be unsafe, they are often replaced by unstudied chemicals that may be just as or even more toxic.

The 2016 update was supposed to fix the new chemicals program by requiring the EPA to make an affirmative safety finding on new chemicals and restrict use if industry failed to provide sufficient safety data. Nonetheless, the Trump EPA has approved scores of new chemicals in a process that lacks transparency and contravenes the 2016 law.The EPA has also ignored known health concerns, limited its consideration of worker risks and denied requests for public files in the new chemicals program.

The EPA has also exploited loopholes in the new law to quickly approve new chemicals, including toxic PFAS. A recent investigation found that the EPA has been quietly approving new PFAS chemicals, through a provision known as the low volume exemption in the new chemicals program. As a result, the EPA is greenlighting new PFAS chemicals on an expedited basis, without public scrutiny. One PFAS, used in ski wax, was approved despite a finding that the chemical could "waterproof the lungs," resulting in severe health impacts.

Since the law was updated in 2016, the EPA has reviewed more than 3,000 new chemicals submissions. More than 1,000 of these chemicals have been approved through the low volume exemption, and since 2016, manufacturers have begun producing at least 900 new chemicals, many without adequate safety data. Environmental groups have sued the EPA over its failures to protect the public and the environment from risks from new chemicals.

4. Failed to Protect Workers From a Deadly Paint-Stripping Chemical

Methylene chloride is a highly toxic chemical used in paint strippers that is responsible for more than 60 deaths since 1980. In the final days of the Obama administration, the EPA proposed a ban on "methylene chloride for consumer and most types of commercial paint and coating removal."

After significant pressure from families who lost loved ones due to methylene chloride exposure, the Trump EPA eventually issued a final rule in 2019. However, the EPA narrowed the rule so that it would apply only to consumeruses of methylene chloride, not commercial uses. That means workers are not protected, even though a Center for Public Integrity investigation found that most deaths from methylene chloride take place at work.

A separate EPA evaluation of methylene chloride found that manufacturing, disposal and several other uses of methylene chloride pose no "unreasonable risk." Environmental groups have filed lawsuits challenging the rule and the recent evaluation.

5. Cooked the Books on the “Civil Action” Chemical

Trichloroethylene is a chemical solvent made infamous by the book and movie ." The EPA considers it to be a known carcinogen, and it is one of the primary contaminants that sickened scores of veterans who served at Camp Lejeune, in North Carolina.

As with methylene chloride, in the final days of the Obama administration, the EPA proposed banning three uses of TCE: spot cleaning, aerosol degreasing and vapor degreasing. In December 2017, the Trump EPA shelved these proposed bans, claiming that it would study those uses in a separate ongoing risk evaluation of TCE.

However, the EPA dramatically rewrote the accepted science on TCE in the draft risk evaluation released in February. As EWG warned in 2018, the solvents industry aggressively lobbied the EPA to ignore a key 2003 study finding that TCE causes heart deformities in developing fetuses. TCE's connection with fetal heart defects was an important basis for the Obama EPA's decision to ban three uses of TCE. An independent review of the EPA's science found that "prenatal exposure to TCE can cause human cardiac defects" and that the study "remains a valid choice" for assessing risk.

The lobbyists succeeded. The EPA's draft risk evaluation questioned the study's design and minimized its significance. An investigation by Reveal News compared the draft risk evaluation with a leaked earlier draft. It found that the earlier draft had relied extensively on the 2003 study and used it as a benchmark for the risk calculations. Reveal also reported that then-EPA chemicals safety chief Nancy Beck – "the scariest Trump appointee you've never heard of" – ordered that the risk evaluation be rewritten to downplay the risks of TCE. With the EPA giving significantly less weight to risks from fetal heart deformities, it's unlikely the agency will finalize the proposed bans.

6. Pressured EPA Scientists to Drop Evaluations of Toxic Chemicals – Including Formaldehyde

The Trump EPA is undermining the work of independent scientists within the Integrated Risk Information System program, known as IRIS. The program's work is supposed to be impartial and non-political. Its scientific assessments are intended to support the work of other EPA program offices and regional offices. IRIS is a frequent target of chemical industry attacks because its independent safety assessments often don't align with industry objectives.

In 2018, the Trump EPA tried to defund the IRIS program. EPA leadership also pressured IRIS to drop critical health assessments.In March 2019, a Government Accountability Office report disclosed that EPA leadership directed agency offices to limit the number of chemicals they wanted IRIS to review, and cut in half the number of IRIS's ongoing or upcoming assessments.

One of the halted assessments was IRIS's decades-long review of formaldehyde, a widely used chemical and known human carcinogen. This is surprising because former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt indicated to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in January 2018 that the report was complete and ready for release. However, answering questions for the record following a 2019 Senate hearing, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said formaldehyde was "not a top priority."

Instead of releasing the IRIS study on formaldehyde to the public, the EPA has instead decided that the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention – under the leadership of Nancy Beck – should conduct its own assessment of formaldehyde. As with TCE, this action will give the agency an opportunity to distort the science and minimize risks. Because these reviews take years, it will also significantly delay any EPA regulatory action on formaldehyde.

7. Rolled Back Clean Water Protections

Industrial chemical pollutants are often discharged into drinking water supplies. But the Trump administration has made it a priority to roll back theClean Water Rule, which more clearly defined which kinds of bodies of water are subject to the Clean Water Act. EWG's analysis found that the Clean Water Rule, if implemented as proposed by the Obama administration, would have protected drinking water sources for more than 117 million Americans.

The EPA's own science advisors have opposed the rollback of the Clean Water Rule, but the Trump administration repealed it in 2019, proposed its own rule in January and finalized it in April. The new rule covers far fewer bodies of water and would leave 234,000 miles of small streams unprotected. EWG estimates that at least 72 million Americans draw at least half their drinking water from small streams.

Because of the repeal, those bodies of water will no longer be subject to pollution limits. Protection for small and seasonal streams and wetlands is important because they often flow into larger bodies of water, including sources of drinking water. Polluted drinking water sources strain municipal water utilities tasked with filtering out contaminants regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, and risk exposing the public to more contaminants that aren't regulated under the act.

8. Cooked the Books on Asbestos

Asbestos is a highly toxic, naturally occurring chemical linked to a particularly deadly form of cancer called mesothelioma.An estimated 40,000 Americans die every year from asbestos-related diseases. Although the toxicity of asbestos is well understood, the EPA has never actually banned most uses. The EPA attempted a ban in 1989, but most of the rule was overturned by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1991.

After Congress reformed TSCA in 2016, the EPA announced that asbestos would be one of the first 10 chemicals reviewed under the new law. Many hoped that this time, the EPA would finally ban asbestos.

Instead, when the EPA released its draft risk evaluation in May, it found that several uses of asbestos, including import of asbestos and asbestos-containing products and distribution of asbestos-containing products, did not pose an unreasonable risk. The EPA made its risk determinations by ignoring exposure from "legacy" uses of asbestos, such as old insulation and building tiles. Although in November the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the EPA to fix this error, it has yet to do so.

Instead of banning asbestos, in April 2019 the EPA published a rule requiring notice and approval before manufacturers could resume using it in some applications the agency considered abandoned. However, leaked documents show that more than a dozen EPA staffers urged an outright ban on asbestos instead.

9. Proposed a Loophole for Toxic Air Pollution

In July 2019, the Trump EPA proposed to reverse a longstanding policy requiring large power plants, refineries and other industrial polluters to always meet certain strict controls, even after reducing emissions. The new rule creates a loophole in the Clean Air Act regulations that would allow large industrial facilities to reclassify themselves, from "major sources" of air pollution to "area sources."

That change would allow them to opt out of strict pollution control standards, called "maximum achievable control technology," and substantially increase their emissions of dangerous air pollutants. EPA's own data shows that more than 3,900 large facilities that emit pollutants like mercury and :{benzene:(style="background-color:#ffcc66;"):}: could take advantage of this loophole. The Environmental Defense Fund estimates the loophole could increase toxic air emissions by as much as 480 percent, or almost 50 million pounds per year.

This rollback is especially alarming in the midst of the global coronavirus pandemic. Studies have found that people who live in areas with high levels of air pollution are at greater risk for severe cases of COVID-19.

10. Continuing Its Quest to Censor Science

In 2018, the EPA proposed a disastrous rule significantly limiting the kinds of science the agency can rely on to justify environmental regulations. The rule would have prohibited the agency from using studies that don't make their underlying data publicly available or whose results can't be replicated. That change would prevent the EPA from including in its future risk assessments most human health studies, because personal medical data must remain confidential. The rule would undermine studies that are foundational to clean air regulations.

The proposal sparked enormous opposition from scientists, academics and environmental health advocates. More than 600,000 public comments were submitted to the agency, the vast majority in opposition. In September 2019, the EPA dropped the proposal from its regulatory agenda.

But the Trump EPA is at it again. In March, the agency issued a supplemental proposal that is actually worse than the original proposal. The 2018 proposal applied to all "dose response" studies, but the new proposal applies to all studies. The new proposal also applies retroactively, which means the EPA could use it to gut existing regulations.

As these actions – and dozens of others – show, the Trump EPA has aggressively worked to erode and eliminate vital environmental and public health protections. The public needs an EPA that will prioritize people and planet over polluters and profit.

hank campbell sci 2.0 bs

https://www.science20.com/frank_schnell/formaldehyde_the_carcinogen_that_wasnt-248231

House aides to grill EPA official about formaldehyde review

By Corbin Hiar in E&E Daily 7:09 AM EST

Congressional investigators tomorrow will scrutinize the role a former Koch Industries Inc. executive may have played in sidelining a health review of formaldehyde.

Koch alumnus at EPA worked on toxic chemical despite ...

https://www.politico.com › news › koch-dunlap-epa-formaldehyde-049060

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Missing: investigators ‎tomorrow ‎scrutinize ‎Inc. ‎executive ‎sidelining

EPA offered 'non responsive' documents to House panel ...

https://thehill.com › policy › energy-environment › 469378-epa-offers-no...

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Missing: investigators ‎tomorrow ‎executive ‎sidelining

EPA's Top Leaders Stymied Research Unit, Report Finds - WSJ

https://www.wsj.com › articles › epas-top-leaders-stymied-research-unit-repo...

Feb 14, 2019 - The agency under President Trump has challenged practices ... says agency officials sidelined studies on chemicals' health risks ... office,” according to a copy reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. ... delayed by EPA leadership deliberations about priorities,” the draft .... 2019 Dow Jones & Company Inc.

Missing: investigators ‎tomorrow ‎scrutinize

Facts About Formaldehyde | Formaldehyde | US EPA

https://www.epa.gov › formaldehyde › facts-about-formaldehyde

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Missing: Congressional ‎investigators ‎tomorrow ‎scrutinize ‎Koch ‎Industries ‎Inc. ‎sidelining

Trump's EPA is suppressing a report about formaldehyde and ...

https://www.vox.com › formaldehyde-cancer-epa-scott-pruitt

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:{Jul 6, 2018 - The chemical :{is:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: known :{to:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: cause leukemia and nose and throat cancers — but ... But more than five months after Scott Pruitt, the :{former EPA:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: chief who ... :{formaldehyde:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: assessment's movement through the agency :{review:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: process, ... :{Koch Industries:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: subsidiary Georgia-Pacific Chemicals LLC that :{could face:(style="font-weight:bold"):}: ...:(style="overflow-wrap:break-word"):}:

former Koch Industries official is overseeing research at the Environmental Protection Agency that will inform the regulation of certain toxic chemicals found in drinking water, causing some to raise concerns over a possible**conflict of interest. David Dunlap was hired to the****:{EPA:(style="box-sizing:border-box;vertical-align:top"):}: in October and did not require Senate confirmation for his position. Regulations on the toxic chemicals will determine whether companies that produce them—such as Koch Industries—can be held liable for cleanup costs.**

**===**

wheeler toxic trifecta:

**Suppressed an Inconvenient Formaldehyde Report**

Last August, Wheeler disingenuously told a Senate committee that the EPA was holding up the release of a report on the risk of cancer from formaldehyde to confirm its veracity. “I am sure we will release it,” he said, “but I need to make sure that the science in the report is still accurate.” In fact, the report—which concluded that formaldehyde can cause leukemia and nose and throat cancer—was completed by EPA scientists a year before Wheeler testified, according to a Senate investigation, and their conclusion was hardly a surprise. Both the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Toxicology Program have already classified formaldehyde as a known human carcinogen.

The EPA’s review process normally takes 60 to 90 days. The formaldehyde report has been in limbo for at least a year and a half, a blatant giveaway to the American Chemistry Council, the U.S. chemical industry’s premier trade association, which has blocked tighter restrictions on formaldehyde for decades.

Ignored EPA Scientists’ Advice to Ban Asbestos

Instead of heeding the advice of agency scientists and lawyers to follow the example of 55 other countries and ban asbestos completely, the EPA announced in April that it would tighten restrictions on asbestos—not ban it—despite overwhelming scientific evidence of its dangers. Manufacturers will be able to continue to use the substance if they obtain EPA approval Asbestos has not been produced in the United States since 2002, but is still imported for use in a wide range of commercial and consumer products, including auto brake components, roofing, vinyl floor tile, fire-resistant clothing, and cement pipes, sheets and shingles. One of the deadliest known carcinogens, asbestos kills nearly 40,000Americans annually, mainly from lung cancer.

Weakened the Mercury Emissions Rule

In late December, the EPA proposed to significantly weaken a rule restricting mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants by recalculating its costs and benefits. The Obama EPA, which issued the rule in 2011, estimated it would cost utilities $7.4 billion to $9.6 billion annually to install pollution controls and lead to $37 billion to $90 billionin health benefits by reducing not only mercury, a potent neurotoxin, but also sulfur dioxide and soot, thus preventing 130,000 asthma attacks, 4,700 heart attacks, and as many as 11,000 premature deaths. The Wheeler EPA ignored the “co-benefits” of limiting sulfur dioxide and soot, and flagrantly lowballed the health benefits of curbing mercury alone at only $4 million to $6 million annually.

Most utilities have already complied with the mercury rule at a fraction of the estimated cost, but health advocates fear that this new, industry-friendly accounting method, which makes it appear that the cost to polluters far outweigh the rule’s benefits, will set a precedent for the EPA to sabotage an array of other public health protections.

ref

https://thinkprogress.org/koch-epa-industry-david-dunlap-chemical-water-1f08cfa2fb01/

The Environmental Protection Agency has hired a former Koch Industries staffer who worked on water and chemical policy to fill a key role within the agency, continuing a Trump administration trend of appointing company insiders to oversee the industries they are meant to regulate.

David Dunlap, a former Koch chemical engineer who has served as director of policy and regulatory affairs with the right-wing corporation since 2010, is joining the EPA as deputy assistant administrator for research and development. Prior to his eight years with Koch, Dunlap worked for the Chlorine Institute overseeing health and environmental safety, in addition to roles with both the Uniform and Textile Service Association and Ogden Environmental.

“As a chemical engineer, Mr. Dunlap has worked on environmental issues for nearly 30 years with a focus onassessing risk,” read a statement from EPA chief of staff Ryan Jackson. “His extensive experience on regulatory issues will be pivotal in our mission to protect human health and the environment.”

Koch Industries is a massive conglomerate overseen by the Koch brothers, major conservative donors who have spent decades undercutting U.S. climate and environmental policies — the brothers’ fortune was made largely from fossil fuels but has since expanded to chemicals and manufacturing.

In April, Senate Democrats indicated that they would probe the influence of the brothers on Trump administration policies, specifically with reference to the EPA and the Department of the Interior. The Kochs have appeared to take credit for the rollback of the Clean Power Plan, among other Obama-era initiatives targeted by the Trump administration.

[Scope of Koch influence on Trump climate policy under scrutiny]

A spokesperson for Koch Industries told Courthouse News on Monday that Dunlap is “not working for Koch Industries in any capacity” at this time, indicating that he has officially left his prior position with the company.

Dunlap’s predecessor, Richard Yamada, left the EPA in September after only 15 months in the position. Yamada was largely seen as one of the chief drivers behind adeeply controversial “secret science” policy proposal attempting to limit the use of private data in scientific studies. Such efforts have been a pet cause of retiring Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX); Yamada previously had a role working with Smith to draft similar legislation prior to interest from the Trump administration.

And during former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt’s tenure, the Heritage Foundation — which has received numerous donations from the Koch brothers over the years — hosted a closed-door meeting with Pruitt and others to discuss the policy.

In his new role, Dunlap will help to oversee a number of crucial programs. The risk assessment program that produced a health study linking formaldehyde to cancer, for instance, falls under the EPA’s research and development arm. Trump administration officials have blocked that report, seemingly due to pressure from the chemical industry. Formaldehyde is a prevalent chemical throughout the United States and is often found in items like particle boards and crease-resistant fabrics.

Georgia-Pacific Chemicals LLC, a Koch Industries subsidiary, is one of the largest formaldehyde producers in the country, and has lobbied against the study’s release according to Politico. As a former Koch employee, Dunlap will now be in a position to direct the study’s future, amid a heavy industry lobbying effort.

The EPA is in the midst of a controversial streamlining effort; last week, the agency announced that the Office of the Science Advisor will be closing. Meanwhile, Dunlap’s appointment will provide a measure of political leadership within the EPA while allowing the Trump administration to avoid a Senate confirmation hearing.

[Politics-driven ‘secret science’ initiative isn’t going over well with EPA staff]

Recent battles over agency nominees with industry backgrounds have proven bruising for the White House, although the administration has largely succeeded in its efforts to appoint officials with strong ties to the companies and sectors they now oversee. That includes acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler, who previously served as a coal lobbyist.

Green groups and advocates argue that revolving door between industry and the federal government has taken a toll on environmental regulations. The Trump administration has overseen an onslaught of environmental regulation rollbacks, many directly benefiting fossil fuel industries, chemical companies, and corporate interests more broadly. Most recently, the EPA has indicated that it will propose easing limitations on the toxic chemical mercury, in a victory for the coal industry.

Aides to former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt held a newly purchased office desk in storage to air out for days, after raising concerns that it contained formaldehyde. That’s according to Politico, which obtained an email showing staffers sought to shield Pruitt from the toxic chemical after he purchased the desk as part of a $9,500 redecoration of his office. Politico reports that just months later, the same aides blocked the release of a report on the health dangers of formaldehyde.

Then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's staff sought to protect him from exposure to toxic formaldehyde from an office desk last year, emails show — just months before his top political aides blocked the release of a report on health dangers from the same chemical.

In the spring of 2017, as Pruitt was finishing the more than $9,500 redecoration of his office, a top career official in the administrator's office noticed a California warning that one of the ornate desks their boss wanted contained formaldehyde, which the state classifies as a carcinogen. It's unclear whether Pruitt ultimately ordered that desk as part of the renovation — which included artwork from the Smithsonian, framed photographs of Pruitt and President Donald Trump and a standing "captain's" desk — but the documents show that his staff took steps to protect Pruitt from exposure to the chemical.

After seeing the warning, acting deputy chief of staff Reginald Allen reached out to Wendy Cleland-Hamnett, the career official then serving as acting head of EPA's toxic chemicals office, according to emails released to the group American Oversight under the Freedom of Information Act and shared with POLITICO.

"Sorry to bother you with this but we need some help. The desk the Administrator wants for his office from Amazon has a California Proposition 65 warning. What I am asking is can someone in your area tell us whether it is OK to get this desk for the Administrator related to the warning?" Allen wrote April 7 to Cleland-Hamnett and another career official in the office, referring to a California state chemicals law.

Cleland-Hamnett replied explaining that the desk was likely made of compressed wood in which formaldehyde is frequently used as a glue. Although an EPA regulation limiting formaldehyde emissions from such products had been put on hold by the Trump administration, the state of California regulates formaldehyde in such products, meaning the air emissions from the desk were "likely to be fine," Cleland-Hamnett wrote.

However, she suggested letting the desk sit somewhere other than the administrator's office to air out for a few days. Administrative personnel appeared to make plans to have the desk assembled at a warehouse and left there for a week, when the highest concentrations of formaldehyde are usually emitted.

The email exchange about the desk last spring took place just months before top aides to Pruitt took steps to block a health assessment produced by another division within the agency that found the levels of formaldehyde that many Americans breathe in daily are linked with leukemia, nose-and-throat cancer and other ailments. The chemicals industry has fought the assessment, which could prompt federal and state regulators to issue new restrictions on the chemical, and could lead to class-action lawsuits.

POLITICO reported last month that Pruitt aides, including chief of staff Ryan Jackson and Richard Yamada, a top official in the agency's Office of Research and Development, blocked the report from going through necessary internal review steps, effectively preventing it from being made public.

Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, the watchdog group that obtained the emails, said the emails fit into the pattern of perk-seeking that led to Pruitt's downfall.

“You can add 'EPA chemical safety science' to the list of taxpayer funded benefits that Scott Pruitt kept for himself. The irony would be comical if this wasn't so dangerous. Months before Scott Pruitt blocked the EPA's report on the dangers of formaldehyde to public health, he got the benefit of EPA's safety experts looking out for his own health," Evers said in a statement.

Cleland-Hamnett retired last year. Allen, who had objected to other spending and travel by Pruitt, was reassigned to a job outside the agency this spring, E&E News reported at the time.

EPA staff worried about toxic chemical exposure — for Pruitt When-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's staff sought to protect him from exposure to toxic formaldehyde from an office desk last year, emails show — just months before his top political aides blocked the release of a report on health dangers from the same chemical.

Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, the watchdog group that obtained the emails, said the emails fit into the pattern of perk-seeking that led to Pruitt's downfall.

Cleland-Hamnett retired last year. Allen, who had objected to other spending and travel by Pruitt, was reassigned to a job outside the agency this spring, E&E News reported at the time.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/07/06/epa-formaldehyde-warnings-blocked-696628

many lnx

Trump administration is suppressing an Environmental Protection Agency report that warns that most Americans inhale enough formaldehyde vapor in the course of daily life to put them at risk of developing leukemia and other ailments,a current and a former agency official told POLITICO.

The warnings are contained in a draft health assessment EPA scientists completed just before Donald Trump became president, according to the officials. They said top advisers to departing Administrator Scott Pruitt are delaying its release as part of a campaign to undermine the agency’s independent research into the health risks of toxic chemicals.

Andrew Wheeler, the No. 2 official at EPA who will be the agency's new acting chief as of Monday, also has a history with the chemical. He was staff director for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in 2004, when his boss, then-Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), sought to delay an earlier iteration of the formaldehyde assessment.

Formaldehyde is one of the most commonly used chemicals in the country. Americans are exposed to it through wood composites in cabinets and furniture, as well as air pollution from major refineries. The new assessment would give greater weight to warnings about the chemical's risks and could lead to stricter regulations from the EPA or class-action lawsuits targeting its manufacturers, as frequently occurs after these types of studies are released.

“They’re stonewalling every step of the way,” the current official said, accusing political appointees of interfering with the formaldehyde assessment and other reports on toxic chemicals produced by EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System. Industry has long faulted the IRIS program, the agency’s only independent scientific division evaluating the health risks of toxic chemicals, whose assessments often form the basis for federal and state regulations.

The current official and former official requested anonymity out of fear for their jobs and the impact that speaking out could have on the IRIS program.

Interfering with the formaldehyde study is one of several steps Trump's EPA has taken to side with the businesses the agency is supposed to regulate and undermine the agency's approach to science, critics say. Public health advocates also expressed alarm after Pruitt replaced academic scientists with industry advocates on the agency’s influential science advisory boards and sought to limit the types of human health research the EPA can rely on in rulemakings.

The officials said Trump appointees have required that career officials receive their permission before beginning the required internal review of the formaldehyde study and have canceled key briefings that would have advanced it. That interference came after EPA career scientists revised the study once already last year to insulate it from political controversy, they said.

In a statement, EPA denied that the assessment was being held back.

“EPA continues to discuss this assessment with our agency program partners and have no further updates to provide at this time," EPA spokeswoman Kelsi Daniell said. “Assessments of this type are often the result of needs for particular rulemakings and undergo an extensive intra-agency and interagency process.”

But as long ago as January, Pruitt told a Senate panel that he believed the draft assessment was complete.

Five months later, it has yet to see the light of day. Meanwhile, internal documents show, a trade group representing businesses that could face new regulations and lawsuits if the study were released had frequent access to top EPA officials and pressed them to either keep it under wraps or change its findings.

“As stated in our meeting, a premature release of a draft assessment … will cause irreparable harm to the companies represented by the Panel and to the many companies and jobs that depend on the broad use of the chemical,” Kimberly Wise White, who leads the American Chemistry Council’s Formaldehyde Panel, wrote in a Jan. 26 letter to top officials at the EPA. The panel represents companies including the Koch Industries subsidiary Georgia-Pacific Chemicals LLC that could face higher costs from stricter regulations or lawsuits.

Environmentalists: Pruitt's replacement 'should scare anyone who breathes'

By ERIC WOLFF

Nearly a million jobs “depend on the use of formaldehyde,” White’s letter argued.

The holdup is attracting attention on Capitol Hill, where Democrats have already expressed alarm, arguing that the Trump administration has allowed politics to interfere in EPA’s scientific assessments of threats such as toxic pollution and climate change.

The agency must “move past politics and focus on its job of protecting human health” by releasing the formaldehyde study, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement to POLITICO.

"Because formaldehyde can be found in everything from wood products to women’s hair straighteners, the public health risks are substantial,” Markey said. “Delaying the EPA’s latest assessment of the health risks of formaldehyde only further endangers the health of Americans."

Public health advocates have similarly expressed fears that the Trump administration has allowed EPA to be captured by the industries it regulates. The revelations about the formaldehyde study come after Pruitt removed academic scientists from the agency’s influential science advisory boards and in many cases replaced them with industry advocates, and after he proposed a policy to limit the agency's use of human health data while offering a carve-out for confidential industry studies.

“At every corner, you see the agency trying to either minimize the role of science or manipulate the role of science or just ignore the work of scientists in doing the critical work to ensure that human health and the environment is protected,” said Jennifer McPartland, a senior scientist with the Environmental Defense Fund’s health program.

POLITICO also reported in May that Trump administration officials, including EPA chief of staff Ryan Jackson, sought to delay an HHS study finding that nonstick chemicals pose health dangers at a lower level than EPA has said is safe.

Insiders anticipate few major policy changes under Wheeler, who is widely expected to continue Pruitt's deregulatory agenda and is well-versed in chemicals issues. He began his career in EPA's chemical safety office, and after leaving Inhofe's staff lobbied for several chemicals companies, including Celanese Corp., a major formaldehyde manufacturer and ICOR International, a refrigerants manufacturer that was recently acquired by Chemours Co., a DuPont spin-off. A Celanese spokesman said Wheeler worked only on the Renewable Fuels Standard for the company, although Wheeler’s disclosure forms describe his lobbying as being on the broad topic of “chemicals issues.” Wheeler is not barred from working on chemicals issues under the recusal statement he signed in May.

Decades’ of research has linked formaldehyde to nose and throat cancer and respiratory problems, and newer research has suggested the connection to leukemia — controversial conclusions that would gain significant credence if EPA formally adopts them. The new assessment affirms those links to leukemia, nose and throat cancer and other ailments, according to the current and former officials familiar with its findings.

The new assessment could lead the EPA to impose stricter regulations of chemicals refineries or wood products and could spur class-action lawsuits from cancer patients attempting to hold companies responsible for their illnesses.

The agency officials said the political aides blocking the assessment include Jackson and Richard Yamada, a former staffer for House Science Chairman Lamar Smith(R-Texas) who is now a top official in EPA’s Office of Research and Development. And they said Nancy Beck, who criticized the IRIS program in her previous job as a top chemical industry expert, is now helping to stymie the program’s assessments in her new post as head of EPA’s chemical safety office. Jackson, Yamada and Beck did not respond to requests for comment.

The EPA spokeswoman disputed the accusations and said Yamada and Jackson have, in fact, requested briefings on the assessment.

The current EPA official told POLITICO that political appointees have managed to avoid creating written evidence of their interference with the formaldehyde assessment by refusing to send emails or create other records that eventually could become public, instead using what the official described as “a children’s game of telephone."

By blocking the report at the first step of the IRIS review process, political appointees are keeping it from being reviewed by the National Academies of Sciences, an independent panel of the country's top scientists that must weigh in on all such risk assessments. EPA has already paid the academies $500,000 for that review, the highest level of scrutiny a scientific study can receive, but the work cannot start until Pruitt's aides send the study.

“If the administration was really keen on protecting public health, why wouldn’t they send this to the National Academy and give it a really good review?” the former EPA official asked. “If it survives that review, then there’s a public health problem that needs to be dealt with, and if it doesn’t survive the review, then they can point the finger at IRIS and say, ‘You’re dead.’”

How Scott Pruitt blew it

By ALEX GUILLÉN and ANDREW RESTUCCIA

The former official said there would be only one reason not to ask the country’s top experts whether they agree with the analysis: “You don’t want the answer.”

Public health advocates say the administration’s attacks on science have had especiallysignificant implications for the IRIS program. The small office of about 35 experts pores over the huge body of existing research on chemicals, including industry-backed studies aimed at proving the substances safe, to independently assess their risks. While purely scientific, the program’s reviews are looked to by regulators not just at EPA, but also in the states and around the world, often paving the way for new or more stringent regulations.

But industry has long targeted the program, arguing it uses an opaque process to decide which studies to rely on and which research to give credence to when findings conflict.

The American Chemistry Council, Beck’s former employer, spent more than $7 million last year lobbying EPA and Congresson issues including IRIS, formaldehyde and the policy to limit EPA’s use of human health research. Chemicals manufacturers, including Hexion, one of the country’s largest manufacturers of formaldehyde, have also spent tens of thousands of dollars on lobbying related to the program this year.

A National Academies panel agreed with some of industry’s criticisms of the IRIS program in a blistering review of an earlier iteration of the formaldehyde assessment that recommended major changes to how IRIS decides how much weight to give conflicting studies, although it did not attack the substance of its findings about the health effects of formaldehyde. Critics of the IRIS program have pointed to that review frequently as they have sought to kill it, including in an appropriations battle this spring. The EPA spokeswoman also pointed to that assessment in her statement. "The National Academy of Science and Congress in legislative reports have for years been highly critical of EPA’s previous assessments involving formaldehyde," she said.

But te EPA has overhauled the program since then, hiring a new director for IRIS and a new head of the National Center for Environmental Assessment, in which it is housed. The changes have received high marks from the National Academies in two more recent reviews, one in 2014 and one this past April. The latest formaldehyde assessment is expected to demonstrate further progress implementing the academies’ recommendations, potentially undermining industry critiques of the overall IRIS program if it were to be released.

Although efforts to kill EPA’s independent scientific arbiter have so far failed, EPA officials and public health advocates say the program has been significantly hobbled under an administration with close ties to the chemicals industry.

White, the top staffer for the American Chemistry Council’s Formaldehyde Panel,wrote the EPA three times between September 2017 and January 2018, urging the agency to incorporate industry-funded research that found no link between formaldehyde and leukemia, and arguing that the studies shifted the scientific consensus away from the conclusion that it does.In November, Pruitt appointed her to the agency’s influential Science Advisory Board.

Less than a week after the council's Jan. 24 meeting with EPA, Pruitt himself confirmed that the report had been complete for months. During a Senate hearing at the end of January, Markey asked Pruitt for an update on the formaldehyde assessment, saying it was his understanding “that the EPA has finalized its conclusion that formaldehyde causes leukemia and other cancers and that [the] completed new assessment is ready to be released for public review, but is being held up."

“You know, my understanding is similar to yours,” Pruitt replied, promising to follow up.

Markey reminded Pruitt of the exchange in a May 17 letter. In a response Thursday, the agency’s principal deputy assistant administrator for science, Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, said EPA “continues to discuss the formaldehyde assessment internally and has no further updates to provide at this time."

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/its-good-day-agency-epa-staff-reportedly-cheer-scott-pruitts-resignation-shame

...It’s a good day for the agency,” one employee, who wanted to remain anonymous, told the Post. Another staffer smiled and took a picture outside the agency building with a man wearing a papier-mache head designed to look like Pruitt, the report says. When a Postreporter tried to speak to her, though, she ran away.

“I am happy,” another employee told the Post. “He was never accepted. If you are going to be the environment chief, the environment has to be your passion.”

The site *Climate Wire* found a similar reaction among employees, describing them as "quietly smiling" as they left work on Thursday.

They have good reason for joy. As *Politico* reported Friday morning, the administration has been suppressing an EPA report on the cancer-causing effects of formaldehyde vapor — just one of many industry-friendly moves the agency has taken at the expense of human health under Pruitt's leadership.

But the agency is also unlikely to improve. The man wearing the papier-mache head was Lukas Ross, a senior policy analyst for the activist organization Friends of the Earth, and he warned Post reporter Dan Zak that Pruitt's replacement will not be any better.

“The only person more dangerous than Scott Pruitt,” he said, “is Andrew Wheeler.”

http://www.alternet.org/environment/evidence-mounting-koch-industries-paper-plant-poisoning-people-arkansas-video

he economic pulse of Crossett, a small town of some 5,500 people in west Arkansas, has long been measured through the paper and pulp processing plant owned by the Atlanta-based Georgia-Pacific. A subsidiary of Koch Industries, Georgia-Pacific is one of the world's largest manufacturers of pulp and paper products, including paper towels (like Brawny) and toilet paper (like Angel Soft).

A bulwark of the blue-collar community, Georgia-Pacific has provided generations of families with a steady stream of well-paid jobs replete with health packages and retirement plans. The plant in Crossett employs around 1,200 people, over three-quarters of whom are from the town or surrounding Ashley County. Many speculate that without the plant, Crossett would simply wither and die. But others fear that the plant has already been slowly poisoning those who live there for decades.

“People are afraid—afraid and scared to say something,” said David Bouie, who worked at the plant for about 10 years, his wife for over 25 years. They live in Crossett, and suffer respiratory and sinus problems, sore throats, nausea and allergies—symptoms, he says, that are shared among many of his neighbors.

“They don’t want to be part of something that could see the mill go away,” Bouie, 69, said. “But we don’t want the mill to go away, we just want it to be fixed and to operate within compliance of the law.”

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory, Georgia Pacific emits approximately 1.5 million pounds of pollutants every year, including highly toxic chemicals like dioxins, formaldehyde and naphthalene. Then there’s the 45 million gallons of wastewater Georgia-Pacific is permitted to release every day....

As reported by Mother Jones, ACSH has gone to bat time and again for its donors, offering supporting evidence when industry profits were threatened. For example, funding from Georgia-Pacific, a leading formaldehyde maker, helped the ACSH file a lawsuit that overturned a ban on formaldehyde insulation. The group has also gone on record stating that fracking "doesn't pollute water or air." A couple of other examples offered by Mother Jones:

Congress rescues theformaldehydeindustry

This is not the first time Congress has pressured the EPA to hand over science on toxic chemicals to the National Academy. In 2009, Sen. David Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana, held up the nomination of a top EPA official as leverage to force the agency to have the academy review the risks of formaldehyde.

The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer and the National Institute of Health's National Toxicology Program both say that formaldehyde can cause cancer. The EPA was preparing to say the same.

Yet the agency ultimately relented to Vitter's demand. After months of review, the academy criticized the IRIS draft on formaldehyde for being repetitive, poorly organized and failing to clearly present all the evidence of its findings. The panel recommended the EPA redo the draft to be more clear and concise. Recognizing that the EPA was having a problem in completing assessments, the academy said it wasn't calling for a delay.

Soon, however, the formaldehyde industry was turning to Congress to help it delay the assessment. Right next to Simpson's language in the committee report about delaying the arsenic assessment was another set of instructions to the EPA. This time, IRIS was told to apply the academy's recommendations on formaldehyde to all ongoing and future assessments. When asked if he requested the language, Grizzle acknowledged only that he was one of the lobbyists for the Formaldehyde Council, an arm of the industry.

The EPA said in a report to Congress it won't start all its assessments over from scratch, but it will try to incorporate the academy's recommendations. As a result, the 47 pending reviews have been further delayed.

IRIS Director Vincent Cogliano said the changes will lead to more rigorous assessments that should have an easier time getting through peer review. When asked how IRIS responds to political pressure, he said he had little control over that.

"We're doing our best to keep our assessments focused on the science," he said. "What happens after that is not part of the IRIS process."

'It's not their right'

Eldan said people shouldn't be worried about her company's weed killer.

...

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/06/28/15000/how-politics-derailed-epa-science-arsenic-endangering-public-health

illegal logging?

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Lumber Liquidators CEO Rob Lynch quits, as did cfo, hq va

By CARTER EVANS CBS NEWSMarch 12, 2015, 7:05 PM

?Lumber Liquidators CEO makes surprising admission

Lumber Liquidators stock rebounded Thursday after CEO Rob Lynch defended the company and its products to investors -- but he also made a surprising admission.

When "60 Minutes" sent investigators undercover at three Chinese factories that produce laminate flooring for Lumber Liquidators, it exposed excessive levels of the cancer-causing chemical formaldehyde in the glue used to bind wood particles that make up the core of the laminated boards.

Lumber Liquidators linked to health and safety violations

At the time, company founder Tom Sullivan told Anderson Cooper the flooring complied with strict standards set by the California Air Resources Board, also known as CARB.

"We're never gonna sell something unsafe," Sullivan said.

Employees at the factory told "60 Minutes" a different story.

"I have to be honest with you. It's not CARB 2," a factory's general manager told investigators in a hidden camera recording, meaning it didn't meet the CARB safety standards.

On a conference call with investors Thursday, Lumber Liquidators CEO Rob Lynch admitted CARB'S preliminary tests had revealed high levels of formaldehyde before the "60 Minutes" broadcast.

What to do if you suspect formaldehyde in your flooring

"We know that tests on some deconstructed samples have had elevated levels, but we believe that the results of deconstructed tests have little or no bearing on the safety of the finished product," Lynch said.

Lumber Liquidators doesn't believe in the testing method CARB developed and uses, which peels back the top layers of the board in order to analyze the core.

"We have been engaged with CARB over many months, provided them with additional information and, like others in the industry, have expressed our concerns on the validity and applicability of the deconstructive testing method," Lynch said.

In tests commissioned by "60 Minutes," 30 of 31 boxes of the product labeled compliant were not, with some emitting as much as 13 times the CARB 2 limit.

Play VIDEO

Fallout for Lumber Liquidators after "60 Minutes" investigation

"Kinda disgusted really, with what's going on, that they knew about the product," said Michael Balero, the lead plaintiff in a class-action suit against Lumber Liquidators.

Balero is ripping out the laminate flo...

oira

Formaldehyde: A Case Study

Prompted by evidence that formaldehyde fumes were sickening Hurricane Katrina survivors living in FEMA trailers, Congress passed a law in 2010 calling for tighter limits on the chemical. Specifically, the legislation required controls on the use of the known carcinogen in compressed wood products commonly used in building materials. The EPA, the body designated to administer the law, submitted its proposed regulation to OIRA in May 2012.

Included in the rule was a set of public health outcomes that the EPA, using peer-reviewed work by the National Academy of Sciences, judged would improve with the regulation. The agency projected benefits ranging from $91 million to $278 million, mostly from reduced medical care and hospitalizations of children with asthma.

While the rule was at OIRA, industry representatives met five times with officials from the office. The United States is a major market for formaldehyde: In 2011 the American Chemistry Council estimated that U.S. companies sold more than $27.7 billion worth of formaldehyde-based building products. Some of the world's most powerful companies manufacture, sell and use formaldehyde, including Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil and Dow Chemical.

During OIRA's review, the scientific findings were challenged — it's not clear by whom or on what grounds — and were ultimately changed. In the post-OIRA version, asthma was eliminated as a quantifiable health impact of the chemical. That single change erased over 80 percent of the financial benefits from regulating formaldehyde. Meanwhile, the costs of industry compliance remained just as high, dramatically tipping the scales against stronger limits.

The explanation offered in OIRA's edited version is cryptic. It says only that the EPA "later concluded" it had insufficient information on the relationship between formaldehyde exposure and asthma to assign a dollar sum for improved health. The office presents no supporting science justifying this failure to endorse the National Academy of Sciences' findings.

new yorker mayer

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/08/30/100830fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all

makes formaldehyde, ~ epa regs 2.2 bill lbs p

Koch Industries Funds Attack on Science Linking Formaldehyde and Cancer

Further revelations have come to light since the recent controversial expose in the New Yorkerabout Koch Industries, surrounding New York billionaire David Koch and his company's involvement in the industry-led effort to downplay the links between formaldehyde and cancer.

In 2008, the president of one of Koch Industry's subsidiaries sat as the Chair of a pro-Formaldehyde lobby group called the Formaldehyde Council. The subsidiary, Georgia-Pacific, is also a long-time funder of the Formaldehyde Council.

Among other things, the Formaldehyde Council tried to downplay the negative health impacts of formaldehyde in trailers set up for victims of the Katrina disaster.

Prior to the recent media attention, the New York social elite knew David Kochmostly for his commendable charitable donations to groups like the American Ballet Theater and the American Museum of Natural History. Learning that he, through his role as senior executive and Chairman of Koch Industries, also bankrolls far-right groups and causes that regularly question President Obama's U.S. citizenship and deny climate science surely piqued their interest in Koch's other side.

One baffling conflict mentioned by journalist Jane Mayer in her New Yorkerarticle is David Koch's generous funding of cancer research, while his companies and their lobbying groups simultaneously fight against federal efforts to regulate the known human carcinogen formaldehyde.

For his commendable charitable work, David Koch was appointed to the National Cancer Advisory Board, a committee of the US National Cancer Institute, in 2004 by President George W. Bush and remains a member today [pdf].

Our research has uncovered very strong ties between Georgia-Pacific, a company co-owned by David Koch through Koch Industries, and a political lobby group called theFormaldehyde Councilthat is involved in efforts to downplay the dangers posed by formaldehyde to human health.

Formaldehyde is classified as a "Group 1 Carcinogen"which is defined as an agent that "is definitely carcinogenic to humans" by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and "a complete carcinogen" in the words of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The National Toxicology Program also recently revised its characterization of formaldehyde to that of "known human carcinogen."

But this determination by top scientists and researchers has not stopped Formaldehyde Council Inc. from trying to convince lawmakers on Capitol Hill that the links between Formaldehyde and cancer are highly overstated. Executive Director of the Formaldehyde Council,Betsy Natz recently wrote a letter[to the President's Panel on Cancer [pdf]](http://formaldehyde.org/_base/pdf/newsroom/FCI_Statement_on_Presidents-Panel-On-Cancer_Report.pdf)arguing that:

"Despite today's statement, scientists agree that formaldehyde does not pose a health risk at typical levels of exposure. Americans should feel confident in the knowledge that formaldehyde-based products are safe."

On their website, the Formaldehyde Council tries to downplay the powerful carcinogen through slick key messaging like,

"the bottom line is that formaldehyde doesn't stick around very long so it doesn't accumulate in the human body or in the environment."

In 2009, Natz tried to downplay concerns regarding dangerous levels of Formaldehyde detected in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) trailers provided to victims of Hurricane Katrina. Natz told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that,

"Americans should feel confident in the knowledge that formaldehyde-based products, such as composite wood panels produced and certified to be low in emissions by domestic manufacturers, are safe."

According to IRS filings [pdf], the Formaldehyde Council was formed in 1995 with the mission to,

"encourage accurate scientific evaluation of Formaldehyde and Formaldehyde-based materials and to communicate sound scientific information relating to the uses, benefits and sustainability of these products."

The Council's operating budget in 2008 was $2.7 million and it reported $2 million in "membership dues and assessments."

David Koch's company, Georgia-Pacific, one of the largest manufacturers of Formaldehyde in the United States, is listed on the Formaldehyde Council's website as a "member" since at least 2004.

In IRS filings for 2008, Richard Urschel, the President of Georgia-Pacific's chemical division is listed as the Chair of the Formaldehyde Council. In 2006, Urschel served as the Council's Vice-Chair. According to the Council's stated by-laws only "Tier 1" members can have a place on the Board of Directors, and in order to become a Tier 1 member a company must pay $200,000 in annual dues to the Council.

Follow Kevin Grandia

TUESDAY, JUNE 14, 2011

Formaldehyde Added to “Known Carcinogens” List Despite Lobbying by Koch Brothers, Chemical Industry

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has added formaldehyde to a list of known carcinogens, despite years of lobbying by the chemical industry. Formaldehyde is found in plastics and often used in plywood, particle board, mortuaries and hair salons. The government also said Friday that styrene, which is used in boats, bathtubs and in disposable foam plastic cups and plates, may cause cancer. The conservative billionaire Koch brothers have led the lobbying effort against labeling formaldehyde as a carcinogen, and Georgia-Pacific, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, is one of the country’s top producers of formaldehyde. [includes rush transcript]

date? who chair? EPW Boxer?

"chemical safety" legislation advanced by one of Washington's most ardent anti-environmental advocates, Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), that has virtually zero support in the environmental and public health communities.

The bill is the industry-backed Chemical Safety Improvement Act, or CSIA, which would take the worst of all major federal environmental laws, the Toxic Substances Control Act and make it even worse, according to months of meticulous analysis by dozens of public interest groups, legal scholars and state environment and law enforcement officials.

This shouldn't come as a surprise. Sen. Vitter's environmental voting record in Congress has a lifetime score of only 4 percentfrom the League of Conservation Voters.

At virtually every opportunity to consider legislation to protect the quality of our air, water and land or mitigate the ravages of climate change, Vitter has said or voted "No." The only issues where he comes down on the side of the environment is his support for ending wasteful federal subsidies for ethanol, and for the RESTORE Act that steered fines collected from the BP oil spill to Gulf restoration projects in his home state.

Vitter's voting record on environmental issues squares well with the wishes of the companies and industries that have largely bankrolled his campaigns. Since 2009, the petrochemical industry has been his largest benefactor, delivering nearly $600,000 to his campaign coffers, while the chemical industry and its downstream users have contributed roughly $340,000 over the same period, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Sen. Vitter has a unique history when it comes to protecting toxic chemicals over public health, having almost single-handedly blocked the Environmental Protection Agency's more than two-decade effort to regulate the use formaldehyde, one of the most studied and highly carcinogenic chemicals in commerce today, in the production of construction materials.

The National Toxicology Program classifies formaldehyde as a "known human carcinogen."And a 30-year investigation by the National Cancer Institute that tracked the cancer deaths among a group of nearly 26,000 people who were exposed to formaldehyde in the workplace found that those exposed to elevated levels of the chemical had a 78 percent greater chance of being diagnosed with leukemia and a 37 percent increased risk of dying from lymphatic and blood cancers, compared with workers who had not been exposed.

Other victims of formaldehyde exposure include many of Vitter's own constituents who were housed in government-supplied trailers contaminated with the carcinogen in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina's devastation.

Despite this evidence and much more documenting the real dangers of exposure, Sen. Vitter pushed for further study in an effort to delay EPA's attempt to regulate formaldehyde, going so far as to hold up an Obama administration appointment to a top job at EPA unless then-Administrator Lisa P. Jackson agreed to have the National Academy of Sciences review EPA'sformaldehyde assessment. That has likely pushed off the agency's final decision for several years.

Joaquin Sapien of the independent investigative journalism center ProPublica wrote a detailed and wide-ranging piece on Vitter's efforts on behalf of the formaldehyde industry and the financial support he received from its key players. The senator is now the ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committeethat oversees the EPA and its efforts to improve the quality of our air, water and land. The committee also has jurisdiction over legislation controlling the use of toxic chemicals in consumer and commercial goods, including Vitter's proposed Chemical Safety Improvement Act.

I'm sure that Vitter's patrons in the petroleum and chemical sectors, for whom EPA is a persistent thorn in the side, could hardly be more thrilled with his ascension. And to have the man who delivered for them on formaldehyde leading the charge to water down efforts to reform and strengthen the broken chemical regulation law (often known just as TSCA and pronounced tosca) must be a nice bonus.

Most recently, Vitter held up for weeks the nomination of Gina McCarthy to be the head of EPA, calling further into question his commitment to an EPA that has the resources and Congressional support to do its job.

Given that history, it's not surprising that red flags went up at EWG and many other organizations when Vitter unveiled a chemical policy reform "compromise" bill co-sponsored with the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who for nearly a decade had championed efforts to reform TSCA that the environmental and public health communities strongly supported.

Those initial concerns over the proposal rolled out by the senator turned out to be right on the mark. Earlier this summer, my colleague David Andrews, Ph.D., delivered a thorough critiqueof how Vitter's bill would benefit the chemical industry -- and fail the public.

Earlier in my career, when I worked for several members of the Senate including Sen. Lautenberg, a former boss passed along one particularly valuable piece of advice on the art of negotiation in Congress: "Always start from your strongest possible position and work down until both sides can agree."

But what Sen. Vitter and his allies want is for the American people to swallow the weakest possible position in terms of public health and environmental protection before the negotiations on TSCA reform have even begun.

The fact is, legislation seldom improves significantly -- at least in terms of the public interest -- when it's debated in committee, a process formally known as the "mark-up." This is when legislators offer their amendments. Some propose changes that would benefit all of us, while others offer up changes designed to help out special interests, such as the chemical companies.

That's why it's essential that any bill that is brought before the full Environment and Public Works Committee start out with broad support from the public interest community, which will require a dramatic rewrite of Vitter's bill to address the problems David Andrews and other experts have identified.

Happily, there is good news for those of us concerned about exposures to toxic chemicals. Thechairman of the committee is Sen. Barbara Boxer, a Democrat from California who is arguably the strongest defender of environmental protection and human health to wield that gavel in a generation.

Sen. Boxer notified Vitter and other members during a hearing late last month that she would take charge of moving any TSCA reform legislation through the committee, which as chairman is her right and responsibility.

It's imperative to maintain a focus on not only the failings of the existing federal law but also the pitfalls of adopting Vitter's bill in its place. It's also important that the public interest community vociferously support Sen. Boxer as she works with other leaders to bring strong chemical safety legislation to the floor of the Senate. It must be legislation that reflects the desires of the American people and of Frank Lautenberg, her longtime friend and ally whose entire career was spent protecting people -- not the clients of the formaldehyde and petrochemical lobby. alex f ewg