A small but vocal group of Environmental Protection Agency employees is speaking out against agency decisions that they say were driven by politics and not science, according to an opinion essay in today's Investor's Business Daily.
The piece recounts the criticisms aired by whistleblower and EPA microbiologist David Lewis, who says the agency is "not just wasting money with bad science" but is also "putting public health and the environment at risk." As an example, the piece cites the controversy surrounding the future of asthma inhalers containing CFCs, which will eventually face a ban under the Montreal Protocol to phase out the ozone-depleting substances.
Investor's Business Daily reports that the EPA favored a disposal policy that called for the burning of discarded inhalers, rather than recycling them. The protocol calls for destroying CFCs in a way that allows the lowest amount of the chemicals to be released into the air, but critics say incineration does not meet the goal. An unnamed EPA official "admitted the agency pushed burning CFCs over recycling" and said Congress late last year prohibited the agency from promoting the burning of CFCs.
The piece also cites criticisms of the way in which the agency developed policy concerning the risk posed by secondhand smoke and reporting on drinking water quality.
EPA spokesperson David Cohen: "As long as this agency has existed, there have been very high-profile whistleblowers -- most of whom in previous years have always made the argument that the agency wasn't doing enough" to protect the environment. (Daniel Murphy, Investor's Business Daily, 8/20).
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