EPA Staff Criticizes Planned Focus Of Scientific Review Of Dioxin Study
Thursday, May 15, 2003

EPA staff is criticizing a proposed Bush administration request to the
National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to review the
agency's decade-long dioxin risk study, charging that the draft's focus
on the scientific "uncertainties" of EPA's study is a
misleading delay tactic.

According to draft EPA instructions to NAS, known as a charge, the
administration is suggesting this focus on "uncertainties".

Agency sources say risk studies explicitly recognize their uncertainties
and that opponents of EPA's dioxin findings want NAS to acknowledge
scientific uncertainty in order to undermine the stricter environmental
and health and safety policies that would likely result from the risk
findings contained in EPA's study.

EPA's draft version of the study finds dioxin exposure should be reduced
because the amount of dioxin already found in the public approaches
hazardous levels.

Completion of the study has been fought by the chemical and food
industries because it would trigger a slew of more stringent
environmental policies tightening Superfund cleanup levels, standards
governing treatment of wastewater, air emissions and food safety
standards and could lead to more toxic tort litigation, sources say.

As part of a White House-led inter-agency review, EPA had secured
approval from all agencies with the exception of the
Agriculture Department (USDA) to finalize the document, triggering a
congressional requirement for an NAS review, federal sources say.

According to a draft EPA charge to the NAS obtained by Inside EPA,
several federal agencies are suggesting that the NAS "conduct a study to
help ensure the risk estimates contained in the [EPA] reassessment are
scientifically robust and that there is a clear delineation of all
associated uncertainties."

But an EPA source says the suggested charge is "bogus" because risk
assessments generally articulate the uncertainties associated with
assumptions and defaults. "They [USDA] know the NAS' answer to the
charge is going to find 'uncertainty' and this will allow them" to
avoid tightening regulations.

Several federal sources say that no agency, including USDA, raised any
significant technical concerns during the interagency review process.
"No one offered a crisp critique of the science despite having the time
and scientific horsepower to review this document," according to a
source familiar with the review. "They didn't have any traction on the
science, so they resorted to pushing for this which will allow [USDA] to
make the 'uncertainty associated with dioxin' the story."

USDA officials did not return calls for comment on the draft charge.

USDA managers have stated previously that they are uneasy with EPA's
characterization of dioxin as a "known" human
carcinogen because the major pathway of exposure is through consumption
of meat and dairy products. USDA officials fear the "known"
characterization might trigger public alarm about the adequacy of the
department's food regulations, sources say.

Despite their frustration, EPA officials are confident the NAS will back
their findings. An EPA scientist says "the NAS will
probably wind up supporting us just like they did with arsenic, mercury,
and particulate matter and probably will say we're not being strict
enough."

But an activist warns that if "EPA is so disempowered so as not to be
able to put out the report after this amount of time, it
indicates something is seriously wrong with our government."

Date: May 15, 2003
© Inside Washington Publishers

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