Environmental Protection Agency Faces Political Pressures

There have been several times in the past few years where the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reportedly been pressured by politics to do less about climate change. Two examples are:

1. An EPA scientist survey conducted by the Union of Concerned Scientists concluded that more than half the EPA scientists felt some sort of interference from the government within the past five years. Nearly 900 scientists reported political interference with their work.

Such reports show evidence of watering down various conclusions in documents regarding climate change, power plant regulations and toxic chemicals, amongst others.

Political appointees sometimes inserted themselves into the decision-making process at early stages, in a way that shaped the outcome of the scientists' inquiries, according to the survey.

2. A leak led to the disclosure that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's office, and the White House Council on Environmental Quality, sought to delete testimony from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on climate change and its impacts on human health.

According to a former EPA associate deputy administrator, the VP's office eliminated many examples that would have required the EPA to act under the Clean Air Act, which requires the EPA to act when there is a human health risk.

Sources: In Survey, EPA Scientists Say They Face Political Pressure, by Judy Pasternak, The Boston Globe, 24 April 2008.

Cheney Sought To Alter Climate Discussion, by Stephen Power, Wall Street Journal, 9 July 2008.

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