Epa Corrupted by Bush Administration?

  • An EPA scientist testing online sensors for water distribution systems (Photo courtesy of the US Office of Management and Budget)

The investigative arm of Congress says the
government is taking too long to review safety data
on chemicals. Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

The investigative arm of Congress says the
government is taking too long to review safety data
on chemicals. Rebecca Williams reports:

The Government Accountability Office says it’s taking the Environmental
Protection Agency too long to determine the safety of chemicals. The GAO
says reviews of chemicals should only take about 2 years. But some have
taken 10 years or longer.

The GAO also says a recent change could corrupt the system.

That change allows other federal agencies to make comments about chemicals,
but keep those comments hidden from public view.

John Stephenson is with the GAO. He says that threatens the system’s
integrity.

“There are just too many opportunities for non-scientists to intervene in
this scientific process and the result of that is it’s stretched out the
process for a given risk assessment.”

And a recent survey of EPA scientists found that political pressure from the
White House has been more common under the Bush Administration.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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