Envrionmental Cleanup

cientists at the Environmental Protection Agency work in the trenches of an increasingly complicated and controversial battle to protect natural resources and public health.

They've had some stunning victories. EPA scientists played a major role in getting the lead out of gasoline and paint, an action that led to a dramatic decline of that brain-damaging poison in the blood of inner city children. EPA researchers also helped clear killer air pollution in such industrial cities as Pittsburgh and Chattanooga. And their work backed regulations that led to dramatic cleanups of rivers and beaches that were once fouled by industrial wastes.

But things can go awry on the path from research to rules. Regulations get crafted that cost industries billions-or rules don't get written at all, dangerous chemicals get dumped and people get sick. For example, Congress and EPA are still trying to figure out how to get out of the MTBE mess. MTBE-methyl tertiary butyl ether-is a chemical added to gasoline as part of an EPA-mandated program for reducing air pollution. EPA launched the program in 1992, despite warnings by its own scientists that MTBE would contaminate water supplies while doing less than expected to clean the air. The scientists later were proved right: MTBE has contaminated waterways and ground water in 30 states, including more than 10,000 wells in California. So EPA has spent more than $2 million on additional scientific studies of the impact of MTBE-oxygenated fuels. All of these studies have been deficient, according to a review by the National Academy of Sciences. In the meantime, MTBE continues to be a problem.

In the aftermath of the MTBE debacle, one of EPA's own scientists went public with allegations of bureaucratic bungling of scientific research. Microbiologist David Lewis, a 30-year veteran researcher, charged in a 1996 commentary in the journal Nature that the agency was "hopelessly gridlocked" and its scientists "largely consumed by administrative red tape." Lewis wrote that EPA was especially weak in understanding the biological impact of the pollutants it was supposed to regulate. He followed with another Nature article in 1999, questioning the scientific basis for EPA regulations dealing with pesticides, PCBs and other chemicals. The agency responded by asking Lewis to be quiet and then to resign-a move that brought action from the Labor Department and scrutiny from EPA overseers on Capitol Hill.

In March 2000, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down EPA's drinking water standard for chloroform, a probable carcinogen, ruling that the agency disregarded the best available scientific information and set an "arbitrary and capricious" standard. The EPA had assumed incorrectly, the court ruled, that there was no safe threshold level for chloroform, a byproduct of chlorines.

The ruling, Lewis' allegations, the MTBE mess and a series of critical assessments of EPA science by government watchdog organizations have fueled the agency's critics. Some, like Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., don't believe EPA's scientific research is reliable as a basis for regulation. "The EPA has lost credibility," Inhofe says. "We need to find a way to involve outside panels of scientists. . . in the regulatory process."

The alleged lack of coordination between EPA science and regulatory policy was in the spotlight in March when EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman made a highly controversial decision on arsenic, a known carcinogen. She halted a pending tightening of a 59-year-old standard for arsenic in drinking water, saying the proposal was not supported by scientific evidence. The Clinton administration had decided to reduce the acceptable level of arsenic by 80 percent, from 50 parts per billion to 10 parts per billion. Whitman said EPA would seek an independent review of both the science behind the standard and the costs to communities that must comply with the rule.

"Certainly, the standard should be less than 50 parts per billion," Whitman says. "But the scientific indicators are unclear as to whether the standard needs to go as low as 10 parts per billion."

Now, the talk on Capitol Hill is the need for "sound science" at EPA. Those buzz words are a favorite of conservative politicians like Inhofe, who accuse the agency of putting politics ahead of scientific research in setting rules. But the words also are used by environmentalists who fear that the Bush administration and conservatives in Congress will force EPA to put business' economic concerns ahead of science in rule-making.

Whitman has tried to steer a course between the two factions by emphasizing her interest in strengthening EPA research efforts and letting them point toward sound regulations. "We will use strong science," she told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee during her confirmation hearing in January. "Scientific analysis should drive policy. Neither policy nor politics should drive scientific results.

"Without a level of confidence on the part of the Congress and the people of this country that the department makes decisions based on the very best science available," Whitman added, "I don't believe we will have the moral authority, much less the legal authority, to really make a difference."

Lack of Coordination

Getting science and policy to work hand-in-hand at EPA won't be easy. The agency's research over more than three decades has been fragmented, inconsistent and plagued by weak management, according to an exhaustive study completed last year by a panel of experts brought together by the National Academy of Sciences' National Research Council.

The EPA's top science job, assistant administrator for the Office of Research and Development, is one of the agency's weakest and most transient administrative positions, the panel concluded. The research administrator position is usually one of the last filled by a new administration and those who take the job stay an average of just 18 months. Moreover, the research administrator has authority only over the research office, and not the extensive scientific work done by EPA's individual resource-protection programs and 10 regional offices. The research administrator often must battle for attention and authority with other assistant administrators, who usually are lawyers with limited scientific backgrounds.

The lack of a strong hand at the tiller of EPA's scientific endeavors is surprising, given that the agency is responsible for what is arguably the nation's most important scientific operation related to the environment. The Supreme Court emphasized EPA's importance in late February when it upheld the agency's right to act on behalf of human health and the environment under the Clean Air Act without consideration of cost. The Clean Air Act requires strong, coordinated scientific research. Every five years, EPA must review its air standards to make sure they reflect the latest and best scientific evidence.

But despite its responsibilities and visibility, the agency is responsible for just 8 percent of federal environmental research. EPA's estimated $570 million research budget represents about 7 percent of the agency's overall spending, and its 1,900 research staffers are about 10 percent of the overall EPA workforce. Because its budget is relatively small, the agency's research projects must be chosen carefully. Since 1996, the EPA has focused on reducing uncertainty in risk assessment and on cost-effective approaches for managing and reducing risks. But the agency's odd configuration of laboratories and the lack of a strong chief of science makes it difficult to set priorities and stick to them, several former scientists agree.

Bernard Goldstein, dean of the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health and the assistant administrator for research at EPA from 1983 to 1985, says the agency's organization makes it difficult for scientists to be heard by administrators and for the research administrator to set priorities. The research office "at times has not been heeded by the program offices nor at times has it sufficiently been relevant to shorter-term and longer-term agency needs," he says. A lack of communication between the agency's administration and researchers has meant that big policy questions often have come to the fore without studies needed to reduce the uncertainties of EPA decision-makers, Goldstein says.

EPA began reorganizing its research program in 1995 to address that lack of communication and coordinate research programs, says William Farland, the acting research administrator at EPA. "The work in individual laboratories was strong," he says. "The problem was, it wasn't coordinated and, therefore, it wasn't comprehensive."

But David Lewis, the EPA scientist critical of the agency's research management, says reforms put in place by former Administrator Carol Browner became a "management fiasco" that alienated EPA scientists and resulted in policies and regulations that are not based on sound science. "Getting science from the field to the assistant administrator for the Office of Research and Development takes eight months as information passes through seven layers of management," Lewis wrote to Whitman in March. Quoting an EPA research director, whom he did not identify, he added: "By the time the information gets to Congress, it's filled with inaccuracies."

One Strong Scientist

The key to helping assure stronger research and science-based policy at EPA is strong scientific leadership, says James Reisa, director of the National Research Council's Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, which oversaw the council's study of EPA science. Leadership is more important than ever, he says, because environmental problems have grown more complex. While the agency could focus on regulating what came out of sewer pipes and smokestacks in its early years, it must now find strategies to deal with the hole in the ozone layer, global warming and the cumulative impacts of tens of thousands of chemicals. "We've picked all the low-hanging fruit and now it gets difficult," Reisa says. "We're facing problems now that are less tractable. So the most important recommendation at this time is that you need strong leadership. You need one strong scientist at that agency who's responsible for science."

The lack of strong, consistent scientific leadership at EPA has led to research that is of uneven quality, the NRC study panel concluded. More importantly, the lack of a strong scientific voice at the agency has contributed to suspicions among the agency's critics that EPA's science has been manipulated by the agency's decision-makers to fit policy goals. "A perception exists that regulations based on unsound science have led to unneeded economic and social burdens and that unsound science has sometimes led to decisions that have exposed people and ecosystems to avoidable risks," the panel's report said. People inside and outside the agency suspect that EPA scientists and administrators skew their research results "consciously or unconsciously" to fit their policies, the report concluded.

The academy recommended the creation of a new position, deputy administrator for science, to be a strong hand in running all scientific enterprises and also be a strong player in helping set policies. The idea behind the super scientist-as-deputy administrator is to attract someone with an unassailable reputation as a researcher who would not only lead science in the agency, but be a strong, recognizable voice for EPA's science in the public eye. "The agency's senior administrators now are paid to manage, not do good science," says Robert Huggett, EPA's assistant administrator for research from 1994 to 1997. "You need to have someone who puts science first. And you need better coordination. I think the government would get more bang for the buck if money for research were better coordinated." To back up the new deputy administrator, the report recommended making the existing assistant administrator of the Office of Research and Development a six-year appointment with the title "chief scientist."

"It's important to have stability there," Reisa says. "With each new head of the Office of Research and Development comes changes in policy and management. It's incredibly disruptive."

The agency also needs to bolster its pool of scientific talent by creating endowed research chairs at EPA's national laboratories and continuing to emphasize graduate research fellowships and post-doctoral research programs, according to the NRC panel. "EPA needs research superstars, potential Nobel laureates," Reisa says. "These kinds of people set a tone for all the scientists at the agency and bring in top talent. When the nation's best and brightest grad students all want to work at EPA lab because so-and-so works there, you've arrived."

The NRC report was prepared by a superstar panel of scientists, who consulted with 200 scientists, engineers and policy-makers, reviewed more than 300 EPA documents and inspected 12 EPA laboratories and five of its 10 regional offices. When the report was released last June, it caused a stir. The Clinton administration quickly endorsed its recommendations. The Business Roundtable, an industry group, incorporated key portions of the report in its own plan for reforming EPA. So did a coalition of eight nonpartisan think tanks led by the Reason Public Policy Institute and the National Academy of Public Administration. The Reason report recommended that the Bush administration move quickly to elevate the science adviser's position "to start building on the credibility of EPA science, because that is ultimately the foundation for everything that the agency is going to be doing from there on."

While Whitman and the Bush administration have been silent so far on possible plans for muscling up science at EPA, members of Congress are preparing legislation that could restructure the management of research and bolster the political power of scientists in the agency. Rep. Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich., himself a Ph.D. physicist and chairman of the House subcommittee overseeing EPA, used the academy's report as the basis for legislation to give science a more prominent role in the agency.

"I've been bothered for several years that EPA decisions were not always based in good science," Ehlers said. "I think this bill will help remedy that." He said his bill stands a good chance of passage because of widespread interest on Capitol Hill in strengthening the credibility of EPA's scientific research. And Ehlers' reputation as a moderate who is not an enemy of environmental regulations enhances the mainstream appeal of his effort. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, is working on a companion bill in the Senate.

How far EPA reform efforts go on Capitol Hill will depend on the involvement of environmentalists and the Bush administration. So far, neither has expressed a great deal of interest. Environmentalists have been busy sizing up an administration they fear will not be supportive of their concerns and opposing administration proposals to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other public lands to oil exploration and other resource-extraction industries. Pat Kenworthy, vice president for policy research at the National Environmental Trust, a conservation group, says she's wary of efforts to restructure EPA. "Sometimes, some of what passes as reorganization or streamlining is really an attempt at deregulating," Kenworthy says.

Clinton-Era Reforms

EPA itself tried to reform its research programs under Huggett, the agency's former assistant administrator for research during the Clinton administration. While many of the appointees in that job have lacked solid scientific credentials, the academy report says, Huggett brought a national reputation as an expert in marine chemistry and toxicology earned in 20 years at the College of William and Mary. Huggett was chairman of environmental science at the college's marine school.

Huggett arrived at EPA in 1994 after having served on its science advisory panel. He was familiar with the stack of reports critical of the agency's scientific programs and was determined to make changes recommended in those assessments. "I didn't all of a sudden wake up in the morning and say this is what I'm going to do," says Huggett, who is now vice president for research and graduate studies at Michigan State University. I was able to do what I did because I was working from what others had recommended."

Huggett installed a program that based research priorities on environmental risks. The agency set out to identify and characterize hazards based on potential exposure and directed research toward the most pressing needs. "There was never any question about whether EPA administrators were using scientific data to make policy," Huggett says. "The question was always whether they would get the data they needed. We needed to make sure you could always get the best science at the right time."

Huggett also is credited with improving the agency's process for guaranteeing that research is peer-reviewed, a process that requires outside experts to review results of its research for accuracy. Prior to his arrival, friends of EPA researchers often reviewed agency research, the academy report found.

Another of Huggett's reforms was an annual $100 million competitive grants program, similar to those at the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. He also launched a $3 million graduate fellowship program, garnering some criticism in the process. "When you're taking away money that used to go to people inside the agency and giving it to people outside, it's not going to be popular," Huggett says.

Reisa says Huggett should be acknowledged for bucking a system that had been entrenched for a quarter century. "The guy had incredible courage and Administrator Carol Browner backed him to the hilt," Reisa says.

The change in grant awards also meant a change in how the agency promoted its research managers. Previously, managers were promoted based on the number of people who worked for them and the amount of money they controlled, Reisa says. "Researchers were turned into money managers and grants administrators. A lot of fiefdoms were built up." And there was no competitive procedure, he adds. "Research scientists lose their edge when they're spending all their time giving out money."

Farland, EPA's current acting assistant administrator for research, acknowledged that such changes caused a lot of pain internally-particularly those that opened to outside laboratories the competition for agency grants. "Cooperative agreements among labs were a way of life," Farland says. "The move toward making scientists compete for funding was a traumatic experience."

Research 'Chaos'

Lewis, a scientist in the EPA's Athens, Ga., laboratory, says the experience was more than traumatic; it effectively made it impossible to get scientific results directly to policy-makers in Washington. Prior to Browner's tenure at EPA, all policy decisions had to be signed by the assistant administrator for research to assure at least some high-level scientific review. The reforms begun by Huggett created layers of bureaucracy for managing the laboratories that EPA scientists say made planning research "chaotic," "impossible" and "frustrating," Lewis says, quoting researchers he declined to identify. Researchers, he says, are afraid of losing their jobs in a witch hunt. The fix for EPA science should have been "simple and not costly: a long-term plan to steadily increase the number and quality of the agency's scientists while giving them more resources and better mechanisms to do research and collaborate with outside scientists," Lewis told Whitman in his March letter.

"The scientists, such as myself, were simply unplugged by Huggett's reforms," Lewis says. "Now, they're passing regulations that are not based on sound science."

Lewis' criticisms of the agency and its policy decisions landed him in trouble with the Clinton administration. After he published commentaries critical of the agency in Nature and in the Athens Banner-Herald in 1996, the agency's Office of General Counsel determined he had violated the Hatch Act. The agency said Lewis had violated the law regulating political activity by federal employees by listing his EPA affiliation in the Athens newspaper ahead of his connection to the University of Georgia, where he was an adjunct senior research scientist. By listing the EPA first, Lewis was told, he had attempted to embarrass the agency. He says his promotions were stopped because he had spoken out.

Lewis took his complaints to the Labor Department and to Congress. In October 1996, three members of the Georgia congressional delegation-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Rep. Charles Norwood and Rep. John Linder-wrote a letter to Browner supporting Lewis. And in January 1997, the Labor Department determined Lewis' criticisms were protected by provisions of federal environmental laws and that the agency's general counsel had applied the ethics rules in a retaliatory manner.

EPA agreed in 1997 to pay Lewis $115,000 in legal fees and damages. The Labor Department determined further in October 1998 that EPA had blocked Lewis' promotion. The agency agreed to pay $25,000 in legal fees but also required that Lewis agree to resign by May 28, 2003.

Asked about the Lewis case or about the agency's handling of dissent by its scientists, Farland, the acting assistant administrator for research, said he would not comment on any individual case. However, he says the agency expects its scientists to work out differences on issues within the agency. "Of course, there will always be differences of scientific opinion," Farland says. "I think the question of whether scientists who work within the federal government can be simply independent, to do what they want to do, is a different issue."

Lewis finds it difficult to believe that agency officials still deny they did anything wrong. "What they don't realize or accept is that every one of those environmental statutes that give EPA its authority also give EPA employees the right to disagree with the agency's policies in public," he says. Lewis criticized EPA again in an October 1999 article in Nature that raised questions about the safety of federal rules allowing the application of human sewage sludge on farm fields. The questions raised by his paper are among those being considered by a National Academy of Sciences panel looking at the issue of sludge as fertilizer. The academy also found lacking the agency's decision to allow MTBE.

EPA decisions such as these opened the door for conservative critics like Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., the former chairman of the House Science Committee, who held two hearings on EPA whistle-blowers who had questioned the agency's scientific work.

However, the current chairman of the House Science Committee, Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., says extreme criticism of research at EPA is unwarranted. "There isn't anything inherently wrong with science at the agency," Boehlert says. "This is a town where everybody likes to say that they favor science-based decision-making, but when the research is done and they don't like it, they [turn to] another approach."

Many critics of the agency have suggested that scientific work be conducted outside the agency in a kind of bureau of environmental statistics, similar to independent offices that gather information on the economy or labor. With a firewall between policy-makers and the scientists gathering information about the environment, these critics argue in a recent report from the Reason Public Policy Institute that the environmental research will have greater credibility. Farland says it is important that environmental research stays within EPA. "I don't think there is a place in the federal government where the research that we do can be done any better," he says.