This afternoon, Congressman Brad Miller (D-NC), Chairman of the House Science Committee’s Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, will hold a
hearingon recent revisions to the IRIS assessment process.
IRIS(the Integrated Risk Information System) is EPA’s premier database of toxicological profiles for dangerous chemicals. The profiles are used for everything from setting cleanup standards at Superfund sites to determining liability in toxic tort suits. The problem is, IRIS only contains profiles for 548 chemicals. On average, 700 new chemicals enter commerce each year. Because IRIS numbers can serve as a cornerstone in the risk assessment/risk management process, an extensive database would greatly benefit policymakers in their daily work to protect public health.
We wanted to see whether some well-known toxins are adequately covered in the IRIS database, so we looked at the number of hazardous air pollutants that are listed in the Clean Air Act but missing from IRIS. We found that 17 percent of the chemicals have no profile at all. More remarkably, for a full two-thirds of the chemicals listed in the Clean Air Act, there is no data point in the IRIS database for the most relevant toxicological value needed to devise controls for toxic air pollution – the inhalation reference concentration.
EPA’s inability to populate the database with useful toxicological information for the Clean Air Act’s hazardous air pollutants (and many other environmental toxins) can be linked to problems with the administrative process that the agency has devised to develop IRIS profiles. To properly assess a chemical’s toxicity and develop an IRIS profile EPA scientists compile the best available scientific research, study and debate disparate and sometimes contradictory research findings, and consider the “weight of the evidence” to derive the numbers. All of this is done according to a step-by-step process that has undergone numerous revisions in the last five years. In the most recent revisions, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson eliminated a number of procedures that the Bush Administration had devised to slow the process of updating the database. But, as our new report explains, she left in place one particular feature that has been a serious problem in the past – the “interagency review.”
Officially added to the IRIS assessment process in 2004, interagency review is billed as a way to ensure that federal agencies outside of EPA that have a particular interest in IRIS profiles can help ensure the scientific validity of the profiles. However, as we document in our new report and in a past report (and as GAO has documented), interagency review is more of a hindrance than a help to IRIS staff. The problem is that the other agencies’ interest in IRIS profiles is usually tied to a fear of future regulation or cleanup costs, so their influence over the assessment process is typically driven by ulterior motives like delaying regulation and minimizing risk characterizations. In other words, other federal agencies behave – and should be treated – more like private-sector stakeholders. They should not be given privileged access to EPA staff or officials. They should provide their comments during the standard public comment period. Each IRIS assessment goes through EPA’s intra-agency review, plus an external review by scientific experts. Additional layers of review for outside federal agencies are not necessary. As we conclude in the new report, the entire interagency review process undermines the scientific integrity of the IRIS process and EPA should abandon it.
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Matt Shudtz | June 10, 2009
This afternoon, Congressman Brad Miller (D-NC), Chairman of the House Science Committee’s Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, will hold a hearing on recent revisions to the IRIS assessment process. IRIS (the Integrated Risk Information System) is EPA’s premier database of toxicological profiles for dangerous chemicals. The profiles are used for everything from setting cleanup standards […]
Holly Doremus | June 10, 2009
Cross-posted by permission from Legal Planet. In a decision that shows the power of Chevron deference, Friends of the Everglades v. South Florida Water Management District, the 11th Circuit has upheld EPA’s water transfers rule, which provides that the act of moving water from one waterway to another does not require a National Pollutant Discharge […]
Daniel Farber | June 9, 2009
The first line of defense against climate regulation was that climate change didn’t exist. The next line of defense was that maybe it was real, but it wasn’t caused by humans. Now we’re up to the third line of defense: it does exist and it is caused by humans, but it’s too expensive to fix. […]
James Goodwin | June 8, 2009
When President Obama launched his open government initiative on his first full day on the job, few assumed that the ambitious endeavor it contemplated would be easy. After all, lack of transparency and even active efforts to conceal information had become almost an inextricable feature of the federal government’s internal operations and decision-making—especially during the […]
Yee Huang | June 5, 2009
Last month, the Obama Administration urged Congress to resolve the uncertainty in the protection of the nation’s waters and wetlands under the Clean Water Act (CWA). In a letter signed by the heads of several agencies, the Administration noted the confusion, delay, and even neglect in protecting the nation’s waters in the aftermath of two […]
James Goodwin | June 4, 2009
In 2007, the FDA came under criticism for failing to inform the public about studies it had had for two years which indicated that users of the diabetes drug Avandia faced up to a 42% greater chance of suffering a heart attack. More recently, it was revealed that Bush-era political appointees at the agency surreptitiously worked […]
Ben Somberg | June 4, 2009
On Tuesday, Representatives Henry Waxman and Bart Stupak sent a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg asking the agency to re-examine its assessment that bisphenol A (BPA) does not pose health risks to consumers. The FDA responded that it was already planning on doing so, and that a new decision would be released within “weeks, […]
Ben Somberg | June 2, 2009
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported on Saturday, and the Washington Post on Sunday, about a meeting of industry groups in Washington last week to devise a plan to respond to criticisms of Bisphenol A (BPA). From the Post: Manufacturers of cans for beverages and foods and some of their biggest customers, including Coca-Cola, are trying to […]
Holly Doremus | May 28, 2009
Cross-posted by permission from Legal Planet. According to Science Insider (subscription required), NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco has endorsed broader use of a “catch shares” approach to allocating the available catch in commercial fisheries. The shares strategy (also referred to as “individual transferable quotas” or “limited access privileges”) gives individual participants in the fishery a permanent […]