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94–588 PDF 2015

S. HRG. 111–1194 

SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY AND 

TRANSPARENCY REFORMS AT THE 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY 

JOINT HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT 

AND THE

COMMITTEE ON 

ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JUNE 9, 2009 

Printed for the use of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

BARBARA BOXER, California, Chairman 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

TOM UDALL, New Mexico 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

MIKE CRAPO, Idaho 

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

BETTINA POIRIER, Staff Director 

RUTH VAN MARK, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island, Chairman 

TOM UDALL, New Mexico 

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York 

BARBARA BOXER, California (ex officio) 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma (ex officio) 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

JUNE 9, 2009 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Whitehouse, Hon. Sheldon, U.S. Senator from the State of Rhode Island ......... 1 

Inhofe, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma .................... 2 

Udall, Hon. Tom, U.S. Senator from the State of New Mexico ............................ 4 

Voinovich, Hon. George V., U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio ........................ 5 

Lautenberg, Hon. Frank R., U.S. Senator from the State of New Jersey ........... 7 

Cardin, Hon. Benjamin L., U.S. Senator from the State of Maryland, prepared 

statement .............................................................................................................. 8 

WITNESSES 

Jackson, Lisa, Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency .............. 10 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 13 

Stephenson, John B., Director, Natural Resources and Environment, U.S. 

Government Accountability Office ...................................................................... 31 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 34 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Boxer ............................................................................................ 51 

Senator Lautenberg ................................................................................... 52 

Senator Cardin .......................................................................................... 53 

Senator Inhofe ........................................................................................... 59 

Grifo, Francesca, Senior Scientist and Director, Scientific Integrity Program, 

Union of Concerned Scientists ............................................................................ 71 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 74 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Boxer ............................................................................................ 94 

Senator Cardin .......................................................................................... 96 

Senator Vitter ............................................................................................ 97 

Green, Kenneth P., Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research ............................................................................................... 104 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 107 

Response to an additional question from Senator Inhofe ............................. 112 

Goldman, Lynn, Professor and Principal Investigator, Johns Hopkins National 

Children’s Study ................................................................................................... 114 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 116 

(1) 

SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY AND TRANSPARENCY 

REFORMS AT THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY 

TUESDAY, JUNE 9, 2009 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS, JOINTLY WITH THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT, Washington, DC. 

The full Committee and subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, 

at 10 a.m. in room 406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Sheldon Whitehouse (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Whitehouse, Barrasso, Boxer, Inhofe, Lautenberg, Voinovich, Cardin, Carper, and Udall. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. The hearing will come to order. 

I am delighted to be joined by the Ranking Member of the full 

Committee, and I am the chairman of the Subcommittee, and this 

is a joint hearing. 

I am delighted to welcome the Administrator, and very pleased 

to be joined by Senator Udall and Senator Voinovich. 

From a point of view of logistics, I understand that Administrator Jackson has an appointment at the White House at 11 

o’clock, so you would like to leave here a little bit after 10:30, I 

would think, in order to be able to be there on time. And in order 

to allow time for questions, I would ask that we keep our opening 

statements brief, and I may exercise the prerogative of the Chair 

to cut them off at some point so that we can get to the testimony 

and get to the question and answer. 

But I do want to thank the Administrator for being here today. 

This is only her third appearance before the Senate, which suggests her view of the importance of the issues of scientific integrity 

and transparency that bring us here today. 

I want to thank our Chairman, Senator Boxer, who will be here 

later in the hearing, but at the moment has responsibilities in 

other committees. Without Chairman Boxer, today’s hearing would 

not have been possible. 

Under the previous Administration, as this Committee witnessed, EPA’s integrity was compromised. Science took a back seat 

to politics. Polluters’ interests came before protecting public health. 
2 

And this proud agency suffered an embarrassing string of court defeats with rulings literally mocking the agency’s arguments. 

But the winds of change have blown and under the Obama administration science is resuming its rightful place in public policy 

and EPA is reestablishing its reputation as an agency whose sole 

mission is to protect our health and environment. 

Two Governmentwide memoranda have gone out throughout the 

Obama administration directing all executive branch agencies to 

improve scientific integrity and achieve unprecedented levels of 

transparency and openness. Within EPA, Administrator Jackson 

has issued agency-specific guidance on the proper role of science 

and transparency in agency decisionmaking. EPA has also begun 

to repair programs and protocols that undermined the proper role 

of science in the previous administration. 

Last month, Administrator Jackson overhauled the integrated 

risk information system, known as IRIS. IRIS assesses the toxicity 

of new chemicals to determine their potential risks to human 

health. Under the last Administration, IRIS was changed to a complicated, obscure, 25-step process full of unnecessary conflicts of interest and delays. Reviews were taking 5 or 6 years or more, and 

the Office of Management and Budget was given undue secret influence over the outcome. The overhaul restores the integrity and 

transparency of the IRIS system and ensures that the majority of 

IRIS reviews are complete within 23 months. 

Administrator Jackson has also resumed the staff white paper 

used to give the Administrator the recommendations of EPA’s expert scientists, which former Administrator Johnson had replaced 

with an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking to wide opinion 

that this was an attempt to sideline the expert opinion of agency 

scientists in order to favor the opinions of industries regulated by 

the EPA. 

We applaud this great start, but there is clearly more to do. The 

last 8 years have taught us that we need lasting reforms that permanently reestablish EPA’s credibility and restore the pride of its 

dedicated employees who work long hours for much less money 

than they could be paid elsewhere, with passion and dedication, because they care deeply about EPA’s mission. 

I hope we will have the opportunity to discuss some of these future plans today. EPA’s important mission protecting the health of 

the American people and the environment that sustains us and our 

children gives it sobering responsibilities. It must be as its first Administrator, William Ruckelshaus described it, an independent 

agency with only the critical obligation to protect and enhance the 

environment. 

Administrator Jackson, it appears that you and your colleagues 

stand ready to meet these responsibilities. I welcome you. I look 

forward to your testimony. 

And I turn to our very distinguished Ranking Member for his 

opening statement. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
3 

I welcome the Administrator here today, and I agree with the 

statement that was made in the opening part of the Chairman’s 

statement that best available science is important, and I applaud 

you, Madam Administrator, for coming out and talking about scientific integrity and transparency as something that is going to be 

expected. But I have to look and see what the record is so far, and 

I think transparency and openness are losing for right now. 

For one, I was disappointed by a recent announcement that EPA 

is eliminating a policy to make the process of setting national ambient air quality standards more transparent. I was also troubled 

to read about the secretive process behind the Administration’s recent proposal for the new fuel economy standards. According to Energy and Environment Daily, Mary Nichols, head of the California 

Air Resources Board, and Carol Browner, quote, this is as it was 

quoted in the Energy and Environment Daily, which I suspect that 

you have read. It says, ‘‘quietly orchestrated private discussions 

from the White House with the auto industry officials,’’ in an effort 

to conceal information used to develop the fuel economy proposal, 

Nichols said that she and Browner, ‘‘put nothing in writing ever.’’ 

Now, that doesn’t look like transparency and openness, and this 

was the process on an issue of great importance. Instead of back 

room dealings, EPA should be encouraging public participation at 

every step of the rulemaking process. 

Of course, openness and transparency can mean many things. At 

a minimum, they should mean that EPA conducts policy analysis 

using the best available science and that such analysis is clear, objective and accessible so the public can understand it. 

Again, measured against this standard, I am afraid that we’ve 

missed the mark. To cite just one example, in its economic analysis 

of the Waxman-Markey global warming bill, EPA assumes that carbon capture and storage technology will be commercially available 

by 2015. Considering the numerous unresolved issues surrounding 

CCS, including liability, siting, permitting and the viability of the 

technology itself, this assumption seems pretty far-fetched. 

Administrator Jackson, don’t get me wrong. I appreciate EPA’s 

analysis and assistance it provides in crafting legislation. I would 

say, however, that EPA’s Waxman-Markey analysis is flawed in 

several important respects, including its assumptions, as I noted, 

about the nuclear power CCS, as well as the availability of offsets. 

It also fails to account for the impact of the bill’s overlapping 

mandates and the regional disparities the bill will create. In order 

to provide a more balanced assessment of the bill’s cost, some of 

my colleagues and I will be sending a letter requesting the EPA, 

in fact, I have the letter here right now, that the EPA conduct a 

new analysis of the Waxman-Markey bill that reflects more realistic assumptions on a range of issues. I hope that you will commit 

to me today that the agency will re-work its analysis and complete 

it by June 26. 

This is the letter. It has been signed by all but two of the Republicans. They will sign it, but we haven’t been able to get it signed 

yet. And I think it’s consistent with the comments that you have 

made, Madam Administrator, and thank you for being here. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Inhofe follows:] 
4 

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, U.S. SENATOR

FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

I have always believed that one of the primary responsibilities of this committee 

is to ensure that regulatory decisions are based on the best available science. I want 

to commend Administrator Jackson for making scientific integrity and transparency 

essential components of EPA’s mission. She has eloquently expressed support for 

these principles in Agency memos, congressional testimony, and speeches. My hope, 

Administrator Jackson, is that you will transform these words into actions. 

So what is EPA’s record so far? At this point, transparency and openness are not 

winning the day. For one, I was disappointed by the recent announcement that EPA 

is eliminating a policy to make the process of setting National Ambient Air Quality 

Standards more transparent. 

I was also troubled to read about the secretive process behind the Administration’s recent proposal for new fuel economy standards. According to Energy and Environment Daily, Mary Nichols, head of the California Air Resources Board, and 

Carol Browner, ‘‘quietly orchestrated private discussions from the White House with 

auto industry officials.’’ In an effort to conceal information used to develop the fuel 

economy proposal, Nichols said that she and Browner ‘‘put nothing in writing, ever.’’ 

Now that doesn’t look like transparency and openness; it’s more like hide and 

seek. And this was the process on an issue of great importance. Instead of backroom 

dealings, EPA should be encouraging public participation at every step in the rulemaking process. 

Of course, openness and transparency can mean many things. At a minimum, 

they should mean that EPA conducts policy analysis using the best available science 

and that such analysis is clear, objective, and accessible so the public can understand it. Again, measured against this standard, I’m afraid EPA has missed the 

mark. 

Let me explain. In its economic analysis of the Waxman-Markey global warming 

bill, EPA based its conclusions on several questionable assumptions. For example, 

EPA assumes that only 6 gigawatts of new nuclear generation will be built in the 

U.S. over the next 10 years and 13 gigawatts through 2025. Yet EPA’s previous 

modeling of Lieberman-Warner assumed a much greater role for nuclear: 24 

gigawatts by 2020 and 44 gigawatts by 2025. 

EPA also assumes that carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology will be commercially available by 2015. Considering the numerous unresolved issues surrounding CCS, including liability, siting, permitting, and the viability of the technology itself, this assumption seems farfetched. 

Administrator Jackson, don’t get me wrong: I appreciate EPA’s analysis and the 

assistance it provides in crafting legislation. I would say, however, that EPA’s Waxman-Markey analysis is flawed in several important respects, including its assumptions, as I noted, about nuclear power, CCS, as well as the availability of offsets. 

It also fails to account for the impact of the bill’s overlapping mandates, and the 

regional disparities the bill will create. 

In order to provide a more balanced assessment of the bill’s costs, some of my colleagues and I will be sending you a letter requesting that EPA conduct a new analysis of the Waxman-Markey bill that reflects more realistic assumptions on a range 

of issues. I hope that you will commit to me today that the Agency will rework its 

analysis and complete it by June 26. 

In my view, conducting this new analysis is a necessary component of your pledge 

to make EPA more transparent. I look forward to working with you to make it a 

reality. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Senator Inhofe. 

Senator Udall, do you care to make an opening statement? 

Senator UDALL. Just briefly, Chairman Whitehouse. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. I appreciate the brevity. 

Senator UDALL. It’s good. I also want to hear the Administrator 

on this very important subject. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. TOM UDALL, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO 

Senator UDALL. One of the things that I think struck me when 

I looked at this field. In 2008, a survey of EPA scientists concluded, 

and this is a survey done by the Union of Concerned Scientists and 
5 

included a report signed by thousands of scientists, including several dozen Nobel Prize winners, reveals some disturbing information: 783 scientists responded that the EPA policies do not allow 

scientists to speak freely to the news media about their findings; 

only 197 scientists believe that the EPA allows scientists to communicate freely with the media; 291 scientists responded they are 

not allowed to publish work in peer-reviewed scientific journals regardless of whether it adheres to agency policies or positions. 

Now, I know the EPA under your leadership, Administrator 

Jackson, and the President, have made changes and I am looking 

forward to hearing about those today. I think as part of a systematic approach, I would recommend that we not limit ourselves only 

to the idea of the EPA fishbowl, but also to promote scientific integrity more broadly in the academic and private sector science that 

ultimately supports much of what EPA does through regulation. 

Intimidation, retaliation, lack of funding and political interference are not limited only to EPA, but pose problems throughout 

the scientific community. 

So my urging would be to the scientists and to the agencies that 

have these scientists, give us the truth. The people can handle the 

truth in a democracy. When we know the truth, then we can take 

the actions based upon sound science that will get us there. 

So thank you for being here today and I look forward to hearing 

your testimony. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Senator Udall. 

Senator Voinovich, do you care to make an opening statement? 

Senator VOINOVICH. Yes, I do. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OHIO 

Senator VOINOVICH. I appreciate the fact that we are having the 

hearing today. I firmly believe that EPA should be working with 

the best science and that the agency’s analysis and decisions 

should be undertaken in a balanced and transparent process. 

One of the problems we have as policymakers is that advocates 

on all sides of a debate claim that the system is rigged. I have seen 

it now for 11 years, because of the fact that there is no credibility 

about who is giving the information. 

Greater transparency should help allay some of these concerns 

and, of course, the better information that we have, the better decisions that we are able to make. 

In this regard, I do have concern with EPA’s recent evaluation 

of legislation passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to address climate change. To help us fully understand how 

this bill will impact emissions and our Nation’s energy infrastructure and economy, I am joining Senator Inhofe and my other colleagues in asking you to re-run an analysis of that piece of legislation. 

For example, the EPA assumes that nuclear power will expand 

by 150 percent over the lifetime of the program. This is in stark 

contrast to formidable challenges limiting the expansion of nuclear 

power, including the uncertainty in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing process, financing of the new bill, lack of human 

capital, and so forth. And I am a great advocate of nuclear power, 
6 

as you know. The fact of the matter is that that seems to be a very 

ambitious number in order to meet the caps. 

Senator Inhofe has already talked about the issue of technology 

and capturing and sequestering carbon. I think you know that the 

Department of Energy has seven test cases right now on sequestering, and they claim that it will take them 10 years to really 

evaluate those tests that they have that they are running. So those 

types of things are very, very important. 

As we all know, EPA’s modeling is only as good as the assumptions that are built into it, and here optimistic assumptions about 

technology and offset availability and the lack of comprehensive 

analysis of the entire legislative proposal greatly constrains the potential costs of the program. 

And I think that analysis of the previous cap-and-trade legislation showed significant economic hardship, while providing no impact on global temperatures. The time to take a detailed look at 

this is right now. 

The point I am making is that the last time we had this before 

this Committee—first of all, we didn’t have enough hearings, and 

I am going to ask the Chairman of the Committee to have some 

more hearings. They had eight of them in the House. We only had 

two of them, and I think we need to have those hearings. 

But more important, there is no way that we ought to vote a bill 

out of this Committee until we have heard from the Environmental 

Protection Agency as to its impact. The last time around, we didn’t 

get the EPA analysis until after it went out of Committee. We 

didn’t get the energy information. So there’s a lot of speculation 

about the real impact of it. 

So the point I would like to make today is that you’re here to 

talk about good science, and I think it’s great. And some of the concerns that Senator Inhofe mentioned about some of what went on 

in two instances bothers me. I think that the Acting Chairman of 

this Committee did a very good job of excoriating the last Administration. I don’t think that it was bad as what he depicted to us 

today, in all due respect, and it’s your job to make sure that, you 

know, 4 years form now somebody else isn’t sitting in that chair 

and doing the same thing about your Environmental Protection 

Agency. 

So we look forward to your hearing and we look forward to working with you. 

Thank you also for serving in this capacity. As I said when you 

visited me in the office, you have the toughest job in the Federal 

Government. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Senator Lautenberg, would you care to 

make an opening statement? 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Show me a Senator that doesn’t care to 

make one. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Given that, the Chair will declare that 

this will be the last opening statement before we get to Administrator Jackson’s testimony. If any other Senators arrive, their 

statements will be taken for the record. In that way, we can get 

to our testimony, given her schedule and the appointment she has 

at the White House. 
7 

Senator VOINOVICH. And Mr. Chairman, I would like to have my 

entire statement in the record, by the way. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Without objection. 

Senator VOINOVICH. OK. 

[The referenced material was not received at time of print.] 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Senator Lautenberg. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and 

thank you, Ms. Jackson. It’s always a pleasure to see you because 

as I see it, and I don’t know what Senator Whitehouse said, but 

you always carry good news. 

So I am happy, and I hope that the discussion was frank and 

candid that the Chairman participated in because we’ve had plenty 

of trouble. We’ve had fake science all over the place. We have had 

people who thought one way, professional people whose minds, no, 

their minds were changed, their words were changed. That’s what 

we saw on a constant basis. 

From reversing global warming to creating clean energy, the jobs 

that go with it, identifying and replacing cancer-causing chemicals, 

science is the critical factor. And I know that you’re a practitioner 

of truth, as well as science, and I appreciate that greatly. 

Science was under attack, under constant attack in the previous 

Administration, which did its best to ignore, censor and suppress 

science. For example, they let political appointees in the White 

House delay or stop EPA risk assessments if they didn’t like the 

outcome. We rely on those studies to tell us which chemicals may 

cause cancer, birth defects or other serious health problems. 

But I am pleased to say, to note, that the Obama administration 

has already reversed some of the anti-science and anti-transparency policies of the past. 

Administrator Lisa Jackson, you come from New Jersey. You tell 

the truth, even if it hurts. And this helps. Ms. Jackson reversed the 

policy governing risk assessments and made it clear that science 

would direct them, not the politics. 

She issued a memo to EPA employees in May, ‘‘Scientific integrity will be the backbone’’ of her leadership of the agency, and 

we’re grateful to you for that. And earlier this year, the White 

House directed the Office of Science and Technology Policy to create a plan to increase scientific integrity across the entire Federal 

Government. 

And I want to also commend the EPA Administrator Jackson and 

the Obama administration for defending scientists and their research. As the chairman of the subcommittee with jurisdiction over 

dangerous chemicals, I know that science is the foundation for protecting future generations. 

For example, there are tens of thousands of chemicals on the 

market, and if you tested the blood of any person in this room, 

you’d find an ample supply of industrial chemicals, including some 

that are known or suspected to cause cancer. 

Unfortunately, current law makes it difficult for the EPA to require testing of chemicals and also almost impossible for EPA to 

regulate these chemicals, even if they’re believed to be dangerous. 
8 

1Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. Army Corps of Engineers—2001. 

2 Rapanos v. Army Corps of Engineers—2006. 

And that’s why I plan to reintroduce my Kids Safe Chemicals Act 

in the coming months. The bill will require chemical companies to 

prove that their products are safe before they end up in our homes 

and come in contact with our children. 

We already regulate pesticides and pharmaceuticals this way, 

and it’s just common sense that we do the same for chemicals that 

are used in consumer products. 

The new tone of openness, transparency and reliance on science 

is the right first step toward making our products, our homes and 

our environment safe for all our families. I applaud the Administration for their work, and I close with an example of a scientist 

that was brought in here from the Pasteur Institute in France. And 

he said that he absolutely denied the fact that global warming was 

in place because there would be more mosquitoes and more malaria 

if that was the case, and he hasn’t seen examples of it. There is 

science on the fly if you’ve ever seen it. 

Thank you very much. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you very much. 

I see that the distinguished Senator from Maryland, Senator 

Cardin, has appeared. Before his arrival, I unfortunately took the 

liberty of closing the proceedings to further opening statements. 

Senator CARDIN. Is that subject to objection? 

[Laughter.] 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. I would ask that the distinguished Senator—— 

Senator CARDIN. I’m looking forward to hearing from the Administrator, so I would be glad to put my statement in the record. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. I would appreciate it. That’s very kind. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Cardin follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, U.S. SENATOR

FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND

Madam Chairman, thank you, and our colleague Chairman Whitehouse of the 

Oversight Subcommittee for holding this hearing today. And thanks to our witnesses for coming before the committee to help us address the very important issue 

of scientific integrity and transparency in the regulatory and enforcement work of 

the EPA. I especially want to thank and acknowledge Dr. Lynn Goldman from 

Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, I am very much looking forward to your 

testimony. 

In September of 2008 this committee held an oversight hearing to examine President Bush’s environmental record. I don’t intend to fan partisan flames by rehashing that discussion, but I am greatly concerned about the legacy of Bush EPA policies that remain on the books and how they factor into enforcement actions, regulatory decisions and permit reviews taking place today. It is incredibly important 

for EPA to reassert the role science plays in its decisionmaking. We’ve seen a significant absence of science in the policies emanating from the Office of Water in particular. 

The implementation of programs within the Clean Water Act, our nation’s legal 

foundation for surface water protection is an area of great concern to me. The stated 

goal of the Clean Water Act: ‘‘To restore and maintain the chemical, physical and 

biological integrity of the Nation’s water’’ makes it clear that science is intended to 

guide the principals behind the law. 

Clean Water Act Jurisdiction 

After the Supreme Court handed down its narrowly split decisions in the 

SWANCC 1 and Rapanos 2 cases, both clear examples of the court’s ideological factions, EPA used these decisions to issue an ideologically driven guidance that dras-
9 

3 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Memorandum from Granta Y. Nakayama, EPA’s Assistant Administrator for Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, to Benjamin Grumbles, 

EPA’s Assistant Administrator for Water (Mar. 4, 2008). 4May 20, 2009 letter from Council on Environmental Quality, Environmental Protection Agency, United States Department of Agriculture, Department of Interior and the Army of Engineers. Administration’s recommendations for legislative solution to Rapanos decision. 5M. Ezzati, A. Friedman, S. Kulkarni, C. Murray, ‘‘The Reversal of Fortunes: Trends in County Mortality and Cross-County Mortality Disparities in the United States.’’ 6http://www.wvahc.org/downloads/earlyldeaths.pdf. 

tically narrowed the jurisdictional scope of the Clean Water Act. In an internal 

memo 3 from former EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Enforcement and 

Compliance Assurance, Granta Nakayama noted that ‘‘The Rapanos decision and 

the resulting Guidance have created uncertainty about EPA’s ability to maintain an 

effective enforcement program with respect to Clean Water Act obligations.’’ The 

memo further indicates that EPA’s office of enforcement dropped or failed to pursue 

more than 500 Clean Water Act enforcement cases as a result of the Rapanos Guidance. This same guidance created a convoluted and inconsistent jurisdictional review 

process that has removed Federal clean water protections from millions of acres of 

wetlands and thousands of miles of streams that were historically protected by the 

Clean Water Act, including the entire Los Angeles River in California and the Santa 

Cruz River in Arizona. The faulty jurisdictional determination review process does 

not require site visits, nor analysis of the chemical composition of soils or water, 

nor recording of biological indicators. 

I appreciate the attention Administrator Jackson has given to this issue. The letter 4 she and other leaders in the Administration sent to the Chairman of the House 

Transportation and Infrastructure Committee acknowledged the current Clean 

Water Act jurisdiction guidance’s shortcomings and consistencies and laid out a set 

of principles for Congress to address in a legislative solution to the Rapanos and 

SWANCC decisions, which is very helpful. 

Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining 

Mountaintop removal coal mining is one of the most environmentally destructive 

mineral extraction practices in the world. It’s touted as being safer for workers, yet 

the harm the practice causes to drinking water sources, surface water quality and 

the incredibly destructive force and frequency of flood events exacerbated by mountaintop removal sites have made life in the towns located in the West Virginia coalfields anything but safe. Several scientific studies have been conducted on the adverse effects of mountaintop removal has on water quality and human health. Yet 

mountaintop removal mining is a permitted activity allowed by EPA. 

I know that the Department of Interior administers Surface Mining Control and 

Reclamation Act (SMCRA) programs, which regulate the mining operations themselves, however the valley fills, that require 404 (dredge and fill) permits, associated 

with mountaintop removals require EPA approval. Your predecessor rewrote the 

rules on valley fills throwing science out of the window and gave a rubberstamp to 

just about any mountaintop removal permit application that came through the 

Agency. 

A Harvard School of Public Health Study on life expectancy rates in the U.S., 

published in the Public Library of Science’s Medical Journal on April 22, 2008 5, 

found West Virginians to have the lowest life expectancy in the country. Further 

examination of the Harvard study data, by West Virginians for Affordable Health 

Care 6 found, at the county level, life expectancy rates in the Southern West Virginia coalfields, where mountaintop removal is the normative practice, to be in the 

lowest 1 percent in the country, nearly 11 years shorter than the national average. 

Drinking water studies in the West Virginia coalfields have revealed dangerously 

elevated heavy metal levels in the water that flows out of the taps of the region. 

The water is far from safe to drink, and when the color of the water that flows out 

of the tap changes from yellow, to orange to red and eventually black, as it often 

does, well, that is all the scientific proof these victims need to know that mountaintop removal mines threaten their lives. 

I appreciate the sentiment from the Administration on using science to guide its 

work. I only had time to delve into just some of the issues facing just one of EPA’s 

program offices, the Office of Water. I look forward to hearing about the changes 

we can expect to see at EPA and the planned reforms to address the unfortunate 

policies that they inherited. I am confident that the reassertion of science will bring 

about the policy reforms necessary for the Environmental Protection Agency to get 

back to the work of protecting the environment. 

Thank you. 
10 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. With that, and with gratitude to the Senator from Maryland, Administrator Jackson, you have the floor. 

STATEMENT OF LISA JACKSON, ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. 

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY 

Ms. JACKSON. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. 

And thanks in absentia, at least for now, to Chairwoman Boxer 

for holding this hearing, for allowing me the honor of speaking on 

scientific integrity. As an engineer, as someone trained in science 

as a chemical engineer, if not in practice every day, it is truly an 

honor to be able to speak on behalf of the Administration on this 

topic. 

Also, good morning to the Ranking Member, to all members of 

the Committee. It is good to see you all. 

I just want to start by saying, and I will paraphrase my remarks. 

I am sure they are in the record. But if there is only one thing that 

we remember it is that good science does not simply happen at 

EPA or anywhere. Good science is only assured by the rigorous and 

constant application of processes that have been tried and true 

methods of showing the best way to reach scientific consensus on 

any topic. And there are many topics where opinion isn’t entirely 

clear. 

Those are things like peer review, things like a scrupulous adherence to transparency, which I believe we are well on the road 

to not only committing to, but putting into practice at EPA. And 

I would love to give examples which I will do in my testimony. 

Many of the ideas I am going to share here this morning were 

in a memo that I issued just last month. We called it Scientific Integrity: Our Compass for Environmental Protection. We call it the 

Compass memo. We are driven, guided by science. It is not only the 

backbone, but it must be our guide. 

As you can see, I am very proud of the work EPA has done. I, 

too, have seen the surveys that Senator Udall cited that indicate 

that a majority of past EPA scientists have experienced what they 

believe is some form of political interference in their work. That 

has to change and it will change. 

Already, I sit here proud because I believe no other agency in 

Federal Government has done as much to restore the role of 

science than EPA, and that focus has come from me and from my 

office. It is important that career scientists know that their work 

will guide the policies that we make during my tenure and the tenure of the President. 

On March 9, as you noted, President Obama issued a memo on 

scientific integrity underscoring the need for the public to trust the 

science and scientific process that informed public policy decisions. 

It provides important guideposts for our work. And as I have said 

many times, while the laws that EPA implements have room for 

policy judgments within them, the scientific findings on which 

these judgments must be made must be independent. They must 

be arrived at using well-established scientific methods—peer-reviewed, and they must be rigorous and accurate and impartial. 

Policymakers must respect the expertise and independence of the 

agency’s career scientists and independent advisers and insist that 

scientific processes meet the highest standards of quality. 
11 

Now, we recognize that environmental science is complex and it 

is multifaceted, and scientists may differ on methodologies that 

should be employed or how any particular study should be interpreted. What I am committed to is that kind of debate within our 

agency, and I am committed to making sure that that debate receives a full airing of views, because I believe that makes final decisions that much stronger. 

Debate is not something that we should fear. It is actually a 

force to challenge us and guide us, and in New Jersey is makes us 

a little bit tougher. Right, Senator? 

Senior scientists must take responsibility for resolving differences, using established science policies and their best professional judgments. I believe actions do speak louder than words, and 

during my first few months as Administrator, we have taken several actions to bolster the scientific processes we use. We have emphasized the importance of transparency and re-thought the integrated risk information system, or IRIS. 

The new process is more transparent, but it is also timely because timeliness is crucial to making sure that when the science 

comes out, it is still useful to the American people and to policymakers. EPA will control the IRIS process as it has done in the 

past. Once again, it now controls it and it will have final responsibility for the content of the IRIS assessments. 

At the end of the day, EPA will listen, take in the best scientific 

opinion from many sources, but it will be the arbiter about what 

the final decisions are. 

We are improving efficiency, integrity and transparency in our 

programs. Our commitment to quality, integrity and timely public 

engagement was also the impetus for EPA staff to develop a 

science plan for our activities. We are working to develop, for example, a comprehensive human health and exposure assessment 

for dioxin, the dioxin reassessment. And I have committed that 

that reassessment will be completed by the end of calendar year 

2010. 

When we speak about the national ambient air quality standards, we know they play a central role in protecting human health 

and the environment, and we have now reexamined our NAAQS 

process to ensure that we take into account the latest peer-reviewed science of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, or 

CASAC, authorized by law to advise EPA on standards. 

It is essential that the best science and the greatest transparency 

inform air quality standards because we know that prevents illnesses and saves lives. 

Finally, the President’s Memorandum on Scientific Integrity assigns the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy the responsibility to make recommendations to 

achieve the highest level of integrity in the executive branch’s involvement with scientific and technical processes. EPA’s active involvement will strengthen our ability to produce top quality science 

that meets the highest standards of integrity. 

I have also asked our Acting Science Adviser Kevin Teichman, 

who is here with me today, to work closely with OSTP. After OSTP 

issues its recommendations, I will work closely to make sure that 

we are fully applying them at EPA. 
12 

The Presidential Memorandum on Scientific Integrity provides us 

with a unique opportunity to demonstrate our deep commitment to 

scientific integrity and fulfill our obligations to the American people. I commit to seizing this opportunity in the pursuit of EPA’s 

vital mission to protect human health and the environment. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Jackson follows:] 
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15 
16 
17 
18 
19 
20 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you very much, Administrator. 

I count six of us present, and Chairman Boxer to come, which 

makes seven. So if we take 5 minutes each, we should just about 

meet your schedule. So I would encourage my colleagues to use 

their 5 minutes wisely, because I will try to stay within that, knowing your scheduling demands. 

Ms. JACKSON. Thank you. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Administrator Jackson, many of us view 

the EPA as an organization that is emerging from a terrible time, 

whether it is the documented experiences of EPA scientists that 

Union of Concerned Scientists catalogued and that Senator Udall 

referred to, or the decisions of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals 

mocking agency theories in terms of Alice in Wonderland, or unprecedented challenges to the previous Administrator from the professional science advisory boards, or the evaluations by GAO, or indeed the hearings of this very Committee. There is a long and very 

complete record of things having gone significantly wrong. 

As you and I discussed when you were a candidate for this office, 

we talked about the processes and the institutions that can help 

keep EPA on the straight and narrow. And one of them is the Inspector General. And throughout the difficult times that EPA experienced, we heard very little from the Inspector General. We had 

a candidate for that position who failed to clear, and from the very 

earliest moment, I urged that you consider this to be a priority position—get somebody very able in and move as rapidly on this as 

possible. 

What can you tell us now about the process of appointing an Inspector General for the EPA? 

Ms. JACKSON. Senator, it remains a priority of mine. Sometimes 

in the appointment process, we hit a few road bumps, and I am— 

we are not quite back to the drawing board, but we are now interviewing some new candidates for the position. I am optimistic that 

we will be able to move along with the White House expeditiously 

to name a new Inspector General. It is a very important, very important position. I couldn’t agree more. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Well, this will be one of many inquiries I 

make about it, just to keep—— 

Ms. JACKSON. I appreciate that. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. You know of my interest in this question. 

More generally, we had a wonderful speech delivered by our 

President in Normandy. He talked about why the soldiers return 

to Normandy and tell their stories. The line in his speech was so 

people don’t forget. And of course, he went to Buchenwald and also 

the whole message of the Holocaust is that it can never be forgotten. 

Now, nothing along that line happened at EPA. Things were 

much—it is a question of a whole completely different scale. But 

the question of so people don’t forget that the President indicated, 

I think is an important one. And I also think, and colleagues may 

disagree, but I think that the things that went wrong at EPA were 

not only significant, but also unique in the EPA’s history. 

It had a long history of being a proud, independent organization 

that irrespective of the political direction of the Administration, 
21 

went ahead, did its job, played by the numbers, and made honest 

decisions. 

So I think the experience of the last 8 years is a significant one. 

It was particularly bad, particularly unique. Things went wrong, 

and I don’t think we can just forget. And I would like to ask you 

what your view is on the question of so we don’t forget; what role 

you think the I.G. might have in that; and whether there are any 

procedures in place within the EPA at this point to try to catalogue 

what took place so that there is an agency institutional memory of 

this. I think you and I share the belief that the better we remember this, the less likely it is to be repeated. 

Ms. JACKSON. Yes, Senator. And we also share the belief that 

that is a very good role for an Inspector General once we have one, 

which is why it is such an important position. You know, we are 

all about looking forward at the EPA because we have such a tremendous workload in front of us for the American people. 

And yet, there should be some ability for us as an agency to look 

at our record, the totality of it, but certainly focusing on the court 

decisions and some of the more egregious examples of scientists 

who felt that they weren’t allowed to speak. 

And I think the Inspector General could play a very strong role 

in doing that for the agency, while still allowing the agency scientists to move forward with their agenda, which is very important 

as well. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Administrator. 

Senator Inhofe. 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you. 

First of all, I referenced this letter that we had sent to you, and 

I would like to know. We are requesting a response by June 26. 

Will you do that? 

Ms. JACKSON. Senator, I haven’t seen that letter. If it has been 

received at the agency, it certainly hasn’t made its way to me. It 

sounds like you are still having it signed. I am happy to review it. 

Senator INHOFE. No, we have already sent it. Now, maybe the 

agency didn’t get it to you. It covers five areas, and even if it is 

a couple of areas where you are not going to, could we just get a 

response by the 26th, not expecting that every question is going to 

be answered, but it is going to take more time for this or this— 

just a response. 

Ms. JACKSON. Not knowing what it says, I commit to you that 

we will timely in responding to your letter. What is today, the 8th? 

Senator INHOFE. I don’t know. 

Ms. JACKSON. We will get you some response to your letter and 

it will be as responsive as we can be. 

Senator INHOFE. Now, I have applauded you several times, and 

I have quoted your quote when you say the American people will 

not trust us to protect their health and their environment if they 

do not trust the transparency, and so forth. And yet this Bob 

Dineen, the CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, made this 

statement. He wrote, in talking about the lack of access to the 

EPA’s modeling, he said, ‘‘The inaccessibility of these models and 

the lack of clear and detailed documentation on how the various 

models and data sets were integrated appear to violate EPA’s guidance regarding transparency.’’ 
22 

Would you commit to allow full access to the assumptions and 

the inputs that developed the modeling? Do you have any thoughts 

about why this statement was made? 

Ms. JACKSON. I don’t know the gentleman. I don’t want to try to 

get into his thought processes. What I can commit to you is that 

that modeling was done at the request of colleagues of yours in the 

House of Representatives. We were being responsive to their requests, as you are asking me to be responsive to yours, and I will 

certainly do that. But I have to respect them giving us input and 

asking the EPA to provide a service to Congress. That is part of 

our job and our function, and we are happy to do it. 

Senator INHOFE. All right. That sounds good. I wasn’t going to 

ask this question, except the Senator from New Jersey piqued my 

curiosity on something that I think would be good to have on the 

record here. 

Science is an interesting thing. It is one that changes from time 

to time. Just as an example, many of the very top scientists 

throughout the world, such as Claude Allegre in France and David 

Bellamy in U.K. and Nir Shaviv in Israel, who at one time back 

during the initial Kyoto years in the late 1990s were very, very 

strong in saying that anthropogenic gases cause global warming. 

Those same scientists, them and about 700 other scientists, have 

now said no, we were wrong on the science at that time; we 

thought that was true and it is no longer true. 

In fact, the interesting thing I saw just last week is Sarkozy appointed Claude Allegre to be the Minister, I believe, of the Environment for France. I am not sure that is the right title, something 

like that. And here is a guy who is totally on the skeptic side of 

the science. 

I guess what I would say is we recognize that science—that there 

are interpretations. Science does change, and there are a lot of people who were immediately on one side that are now on the other 

side—just the recognition that science does change. 

Ms. JACKSON. The recognition—I recognize that as we get more 

data, scientists are duty-bound to constantly be reviewing it and it 

may or may not change their position. 

Senator INHOFE. Very good. 

Ms. JACKSON. On the issue of climate science, despite the fact 

that 700 sounds like a large number, the vast majority of scientists 

who work in the field, the scientific consensus, is still that anthropogenic causes are causing our climate to change. So I certainly, 

and you and I have discussed this before, Senator, recognize the 

need to keep an open mind and to look at information as it comes 

in. I am not a climate scientist by training, but I do respect the 

consensus that has been reached amongst them. 

Senator INHOFE. Yes, but as you say, as new data comes in, scientists do change. 

Last, the IRIS process that you are adopting here does overlook 

some steps that the previous Administration was criticized for, 

such as OMB and others. There have been several people in the 

scientific community that feel that the EPA is writing the science, 

reviewing the science, and declaring the science. 

Would you look at the—where is that chart? Well, the OMB part 

is in the post peer-review and several internal EPA steps. Would 
23 

you look at the chart that was used prior to that and then respond 

to us in writing for the record which of those steps you are eliminating. Would you do that for us? 

Ms. JACKSON. I am happy to do that, and I have looked at that 

chart in the development of the new process. 

Senator INHOFE. Yes, I know. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. I thank the distinguished Ranking Member. 

I note with pleasure the arrival of our Chairman, who has contributed so much to keeping EPA within the proper bounds of scientific integrity and transparency. She has very courteously told 

me to continue following the early bird rule, so we turn now to Senator Udall. 

Senator UDALL. Thank you. 

I think it is important for the EPA and this Committee to also 

consider the consequences of the Data Access Act and the Data 

Quality Act. As you probably know, Administrator Jackson, these 

two appropriations riders passed in 1998 and 2000. And they put 

federally funded science, which is either done by in-house agency 

scientists or academics at a disadvantage to private sector for-profit 

science. These Acts give legal rights to regulated industries to file 

baseless attacks and delays against science supporting environmental regulation, without any penalty. 

In principle, data access is a good thing, but due to the successful 

efforts of industry lobbyists, industry gets access to Government 

and academic data being used for regulation, but not the other way 

around. The data is only flowing one way from the researchers to 

industry opponents. 

Using these Acts in 2003, the industry-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute filed a challenge to withdraw the National Assessment on Climate Change, despite that fact that it was heavily 

peer-reviewed, unlike the work of the think tank. The assessment 

was eventually published, but only after a fight. 

My question has two parts. First, in its review of scientific integrity at EPA, is the agency paying any attention to the impacts of 

these two Acts on the scientific basis for EPA’s regulatory decisionmaking? And second, do any ongoing reviews underway at OMB 

promise to reform the way that these Acts are implemented? 

Ms. JACKSON. The agency’s review, Senator, of the impact of 

those Acts I think has been part and parcel of our work with the 

Office of Science and Technology Policy on implementation of the 

Presidential Memorandum on Scientific Integrity. So I do believe 

that there has been—I am looking for Kevin—some discussion of 

that as part of that process. And I would expect, because it affects 

us agency-wide, certainly EPA is one agency where there is a potential for great effect. We have been quite vocal in that process. 

Senator UDALL. And as you know, when you pass appropriations 

riders, many times you don’t get the full benefit of the experience 

of the Congress. So I hope that when you review these and look at 

these that you come back to us, and come back to this Committee 

and to the Congress with recommendations, changes to be made to 

make our scientific decisionmaking more effective, more fair to both 
24 

industry scientists and Government scientists. Because I think that 

is ultimately where we are going to get the very best policy. 

Thank you very much. 

Ms. JACKSON. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Excuse me. 

Senator Barrasso. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I have a full statement if I could please put that in the record, 

and I have some question. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. It will be put in the record without objection. 

[The referenced material was not received at time of print.] 

Senator BARRASSO. Welcome. I hope you had an enjoyable trip to 

Wyoming and had a chance to see some of the great beauty of the 

incredible State. 

Ms. JACKSON. A beautiful State. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you. 

I was looking at a New York Times article, and this was May 20. 

It said, ‘‘Vow of silence key to White House-California Fuel Economy Talks.’’ And it starts by saying there was a simple rule for negotiations between the White House and California on vehicle fuel 

economy: put nothing in writing, put nothing in writing. It goes on 

and talks about decisions that nothing would be put in writing 

ever. And that was by Mary Nichols from California, talking about 

fuel standards and what was happening in the two States. 

When they say ‘‘put nothing in writing ever,’’ it also mentioned 

they didn’t have any group meetings in discussing these fuel standards. And this was all in regard to approving vehicle emissions 

standards. 

Did you participate in any of these meetings between Ms. Browner and Ms. Nichols? 

Ms. JACKSON. I don’t think I participated in any meeting with 

the two of them. Certainly, EPA was integrally involved in development of those fuel emission standards and the announcement made 

by the President. 

Senator BARRASSO. Well, this seems to imply that the decisions 

were all made in meetings that you actually didn’t participate in 

at all. And yet if you look at the Clean Air Act, it says the Administrator shall, by regulation, prescribe and from time to time revise 

in accordance with the provisions of this section, standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class or classes 

of new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines which in the 

Administrator’s judgment cause or contribute to air pollution, 

which may responsibly be anticipated to endanger public welfare. 

I mean, it goes on and on, but it says the Administrator shall, 

not Carol Browner. Under the law, wasn’t this your decision to 

make? It seems that Ms. Browner is the one in charge and she has 

not been approved by the Senate, and not you, who were the administrator who we have confirmed to really run the Environmental Protection Agency, not an energy czar. 

Ms. JACKSON. Yes, I think your question actually is based on a 

misunderstanding of the process here. First off, these were negotiations. I have run an enforcement program. I have been involved in 

numerous negotiations, and negotiations demand a level of trust 
25 

among the people around the table. We were talking about the auto 

industry. We had 10 CEOs who joined the President for that announcement. We had the unions. We had the State of California 

who have done path-breaking work on auto emissions standards. 

We had EPA and we had the Department of Transportation. Those 

discussions EPA participated in from a technical standpoint in 

order to give information on things like from our Ann Arbor lab, 

the costs or the feasibility of various types of controls on engines. 

But to imply that the kind of secrecy that goes with negotiations 

so that people can speak freely to each other somehow is lack of 

scientific integrity is just a misunderstanding of the process. 

Senator BARRASSO. But this is a hearing on transparency. What 

we are dealing with here is with transparency, and I want to know 

where the buck stops. Does it stop with you or does it stop with 

Ms. Browner? Because this talks about, I mean, specifically the 

New York Times article on May 20, it was then that Nichols and 

Browner decided to keep their discussions as quiet as possible, 

holding no group meetings, none at all. And then they, quote Ms. 

Nichols as saying, ‘‘We put nothing in writing ever.’’ 

CNN this week had a story on Friday about the number of czars 

running this Administration instead of the people that are confirmed by the Senate. And I have great concerns in an Administration that says, we want transparency; we want to be open; we want 

the American people to see what exactly is going on. 

What the New York Times article speaks about are secret meetings, private meetings, hidden meetings, and that you, as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, were not even 

involved in, even though is affects specifically the areas that the 

laws of the Nation say you are to oversee. 

Ms. JACKSON. To state again, my staff, certainly high-level members of my staff, were involved in the Auto Task Force, as well as 

on the subcommittees that were working specifically on this particularly thorny issue. This issue is one that demanded a cry for 

coordination at the White House level because it involved two agencies of the Federal Government, DOT and EPA, along with a State 

and 12 other States or more who had decided to join with California. 

And so I don’t want to be left with the impression or the sound 

bite that somehow EPA wasn’t involved in the process. We clearly 

were. The negotiations that led to the path-breaking agreement 

that the President announced took time and it took energy and 

they were handled out of the White House. 

Senator BARRASSO. Are you saying the staff was in charge then? 

I am still confused by this, and I see that my time has expired, but 

thank you very much for your comments. 

Ms. JACKSON. Thank you. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Senator Barrasso. I apologize 

for holding to the clock, but the Administrator has an appointment 

at the White House so I am trying to get everybody a turn in before 

she has to leave. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Senator Cardin. 

Senator CARDIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
26 

Administrator Jackson, it is a pleasure to have you before our 

Committee. 

I want to touch on a couple of issues. First, the Clean Water Act. 

I am very interested in effective policies concerning clean water in 

America. I had the responsibility to chair the Subcommittee, and 

it seems to me that the Supreme Court decisions on jurisdiction 

has made it extremely difficult for you to achieve, for us to achieve 

the goals set out in the Clean Water Act based upon good science 

information. 

And I would just ask for your help. I know we have talked about 

this before. And giving us the strategy so that we can allow science 

to dictate our policies in this Country, at least advise us as to what 

we should be doing on clean water. We have a tremendous interest 

in my State, as you know, with the Chesapeake Bay and I think 

this is important throughout our Country, and just urge your attention to a strategy that will allow us to return to good science 

in helping us develop the policies for clean water in this Nation. 

Ms. JACKSON. I am happy to do that, Senator. 

Senator CARDIN. Thank you. 

I want to turn your attention to mountain-top removal of coal. 

Senator Alexander and I have filed legislation in regards to this as 

one of the most destructive practices in the world for extracting 

minerals. It is controlled not only by the Surface Mine Control and 

Reclamation Act, but also 404 permits under EPA. So you have a 

direct interest in this area. 

I think it is pretty intuitive that drinking brown water is not 

healthy for you, as it gets darker and darker. But we now have 

some empirical evidence on health results of communities that are 

affected by this mountain-top mining, and would just urge you to 

get us the best science information possible so that we can make 

the right decisions. I know that there is a lot of interest involved 

here, but public health dictates that we take action. 

Ms. JACKSON. Thank you, Senator. I don’t want to eat up all your 

time, but thank you for giving me just a minute to address that. 

I think that those who are most concerned about this issue probably do have a valid concern that EPA can be more transparent in 

the review processes it uses to judge the potential clean water impacts of these projects. Once again, EPA’s role here is to look at 

what impacts these projects potentially have on water quality, and 

the law says there can be no significant degradation. And I think 

it is valid for people to say, what does that mean and how are you 

judging that. 

So the commitment I would like to make to you is that we will 

get better information out there and increase the transparency of 

our process so that people don’t have to guess what it is EPA is 

thinking or what our scientists are using to make judgments on 

any particular permit. 

Senator CARDIN. That is fair enough. That is what we want. We 

want to see transparency. We want the information to be made 

available to us. We want to make the best judgments based upon 

the information that is available. And I think in this area of mountain-top mining, it is going to become obvious, but we need transparency in the process. 
27 

Later on the third panel, a distinguished person from Maryland 

will be testifying once again before our Committee, Dr. Lynn Goldman, and I welcome here to the Committee, a Professor, Environmental Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins University. She testified 

last year before our Committee and talked a little bit about some 

of the problems of the previous Administration. 

The specific issue I want to talk about is a comment made in 

that statement where she discussed concerns about changes that 

have been made in EPA’s integrated risk information system, IRIS, 

that opened the door for interference by Federal agencies like the 

Department of Defense, who are responsible for waste cleanups in 

communities and have an interest in delaying action. 

I just want to use my last 50 seconds I have left just to compliment you and your agency for the manner in which you have 

worked with the Department of Defense. We are making progress 

in Maryland as a result of cooperation now between agencies. And 

that is good news, and I just really wanted to compliment the early 

action of your agency in trying to work out differences with other 

Federal agencies so that communities can get the benefit of cleanup 

where it is needed, and we are making progress now at Fort Meade 

that was not made before. So thank you very much. 

Ms. JACKSON. Well, and thank you for your advocacy on behalf 

of the people of Maryland. 

Senator CARDIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. The distinguished Senator from New Jersey, Senator Lautenberg. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It 

shifts very transparently, but always good chairmen on this Committee because this Committee is driven by truth and candor, and 

that is the way we want to do it. Certainly, that is the mantel that 

you have adopted, and we appreciate it greatly. 

I introduced the Kids-Safe Chemicals Act. It would force companies to conduct and submit studies on the safety of chemicals. 

Would that help ease your task in monitoring what is going on 

there? 

Ms. JACKSON. The work you have already done, Senator, on leading the charge to ask tough questions about the Toxic Substances 

Control Act, about who should be responsible for getting the best 

data to EPA and about EPA’s role, is extremely important. 

EPA hasn’t taken, but I hope will soon take on behalf of the Administration, a formal position on the legislation. But I think there 

is much to applaud in the idea that the American people are ready, 

and I think maybe even hungry, to know that the Government is 

ramping up its attention to the evaluation of chemicals before they 

end up in products that are used by our children or by our families. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. I wrote a law that is referred to in its simplest form as the right to know. And it mimicked, if I may say, 

what was law in New Jersey, and people had a right to know and 

it was very helpful to us even though it had little or no penalty except public knowledge. It worked wonders. And this is something 

that the past Administration has continued to chip away at, and 

see if we could reduce that requirement. Well, we don’t want that 

to happen. 
28 

In 2006 and 2007, the EPA completed only four chemical risk assessments, despite a backlog of more than 70 chemicals. In fact, 69 

percent of outgoing assessments have been in progress for more 

than 5 years. 

What might you do to speed up the pace of risk assessment at 

EPA, while you are maintaining the quality standard that you have 

set? 

Ms. JACKSON. The risk assessment process at EPA was previously taking close to 10 years, if you looked at how long it was 

taking to get some assessments out. We have now committed to a 

new IRIS process that would take about 23 months, Senator. And 

our idea there is that you can invite rigorous public discussion. You 

can invite all kinds of input, including input from fellow agencies 

like the Department of Defense, but it will be on the record. Everyone will be able to see those comments, and EPA will control the 

final decision. 

And the reason that is important is to ensure that we don’t end 

up in endless debates back and forth at the expense of American’s 

health while they wait and wait and wait for somebody in the Federal Government, and it is really EPA’s role to do it, to speak on 

risk of any particular chemical. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. I would ask you a question about Superfund. You are intimately knowledgeable about what the pace of 

Superfund cleanup has done. I picked up kind of management of 

the law from Governor Florio, Jim Florio, who wrote the Superfund 

law in 1980. It took us a long time to learn how to do the job properly. 

It took a long time to get people trained. We have always managed, in my view, to get loyal and competent people in positions of 

importance in Government. I find the commitment to the work is 

far more binding than that which I have found in the private sector. 

What do you think we might be able to do pace-wise if we could 

reinstate the polluter pays obligation? 

Ms. JACKSON. Well, reinstatement of that obligation obviously is 

the first step, because it means a constant steady stream of a 

known amount of money to these cleanups. One of the things that 

has happened over the past year is this kind of, you know, giving 

different sites allowances and trying to figure out what is the minimum amount necessary to keep the cleanup going. 

But I know you and Chairman Boxer have asked some very hard 

questions that I haven’t yet fully answered about expressing your 

frustration with the pace of cleanups, the number of construction 

completions going down, and finding ways to see that number rise 

back to the levels we saw even 10 years ago. 

And so, I am committed to trying to find those answers. I don’t 

have them today. I did commit to the Chairman that we would do 

that work, and Mathy Stanislaus, thanks to the Committee, and 

your confirmation by the full Senate, has started actually I believe 

yesterday as head of the Superfund program, of OSWER, and that 

is certainly one of his charges. 

We have to be creative and innovative, but we need to keep these 

cleanups moving. And I can tell you, going around the Country now 

and having events with Recovery Act money and seeing the joy, the 
29 

literal joy in communities when you come back to them and say not 

only are we back with a little money, we are back with enough 

money to change the cleanup schedule. 

I could do that all day long. I wish it was my only job. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Thanks very much. 

I would just close, if I might take 1 second. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. The Senator’s time has expired. 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Cruel behavior. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. It is, but it is 10:31. The Administrator 

has to get to the White House, and I will ask her if she could give 

5 minutes to the Chairman. We will then conclude. 

Ms. JACKSON. Absolutely. 

Senator BOXER. OK. 

Because of time, I just want to say that I will be submitting my 

questions to you for the record. Some of them follow up on Senator 

Lautenberg’s questions. But I just feel I want to respond to Senator 

Barrasso in his anxiety over your not doing enough, if that is what 

he was trying to say, and say that I don’t think in all my years, 

I have ever encountered an Administrator who hit the ground running the way you did. And thanks to this President for getting this 

appointment right. 

I will just give a few examples. Air testing near schools, you 

promised you would do it. You started it right away, so that we can 

know if our kids are being exposed to toxics. Investigating the coal 

ash waste nationwide, and we are working very closely because we 

are very concerned about disasters waiting to happen all over this 

Country, and we are working on that. 

You hired an expert on children’s health, reporting directly to 

you, and we have had meetings in my office about how to do more, 

and Senator Lautenberg, even though he is chafing at not being 

able to talk a little longer, I want him to know how proud I am 

of him in his work to protect kids. And this kids’ safety law is essential. And as Chairman, I commit myself to moving on this. 

I think Senator Whitehouse’s new chairmanship for Oversight is 

being proven that this was a great decision of this Committee, because he will be working directly with you as well. 

You also announced the review of the waiver, and that set off, 

you know frankly, the negotiations that Senator Barrasso criticized. Why is the party of no criticizing the fact that we resolved 

an enormous dispute between the Federal Government and 19 

States, or let’s say 18 States, that were very upset that they 

couldn’t do more on fighting global warming through vehicle emissions? 

And the fact that of course you were at the table, but this did 

require the White House because, as you pointed out, there were 

so many parties involved, the DOT, the EPA, the autos, all the 

States. And you know, we should say hooray because now these 

lawsuits are being dropped, and yes, maybe not a lot was put in 

writing. Maybe there was a concern because there were a lot of 

lawsuits out there. The fact is, we should be very pleased. 

And of course, your work on the endangerment finding, the proposed one that I think is leading us to hopefully a way to deal with 
30 

greenhouse gas emissions; the IRIS risk analysis process that you 

have changed. 

So I just want to say, you know, I could not be more pleased. And 

then I am going to in my last 2 minutes just make a couple of 

statements from my opening statement. 

Science had clearly been under siege when you took the reins. 

From clean air to perchlorate to children’s health, I believe decisions that should have been based on science were based on politics 

and the polluters were running the show. This is my opinion and 

I would be glad to go toe to toe with anybody who thinks differently. You know, that is why the whole IRIS program was so derailed because we put the polluters at the table. And the fact is, 

it is the EPA’s job to clean up the environment. It is not the Environmental Pollution Agency. It is the Environmental Protection 

Agency. And I am so proud of the work you are doing. 

And I also want to thank Senator Inhofe, he is in there, out there 

somewhere, because when it came to giving you the political appointees that you need and that the President had sent down, he 

has been most cooperative. And we were able to get Gina McCarthy 

through after a little bit of a fuss and a fight. We have some of the 

others done, Tom Strickland. And I have to say that Senator Inhofe 

has not been obstructionist, and I appreciate it so much. 

So I just want to thank you, Administrator, for your openness, 

your honesty. You just come and you look us all in the eye regardless of whether you agree with us. You tell us what you think. You 

are also willing to have an open mind for all of us. And what more 

could we ask from you? 

But I just wanted to counter Senator Barrasso’s point, if you 

heard him and didn’t know you, you would think he was talking 

about somebody else. You couldn’t be stronger or more assertive in 

implementing your responsibilities under the law. 

And I want to thank again Senator Whitehouse for working with 

me to create this Subcommittee, because this oversight is essential. 

You have so many issues on your plate and so many, frankly, dangerous problems that you are dealing with, problems that have 

been neglected. 

So we will work with you in the future, as we have going into 

this, and I am very proud of the work you are doing. 

And I thank you, Senator. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. On that happy note, the Administrator is 

excused for her engagement at the White House. I thank her very 

much for her attendance and her testimony, and hope I have not 

caused too much anxiety on the part of her staff who urgently are 

signaling that she needs to be on the way. 

Senator BOXER. Will you tell the President we all want you to 

have more input? Tell him that Senator Barrasso is very worried, 

and he should listen to you. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. JACKSON. I will, but he will say, what, more? How much 

more can I possibly give you? 

And you know, just to have a second. Senator Barrasso is gone, 

and I am sorry to hear that, but you know, I just want to say for 

the record, of course EPA was there. We were hands-on at the 

table. To take Mary Nichols’ quote, and we both know her. Some-
31 

one should ask her what she meant, but certainly EPA was integrally involved in this ground breaking. 

And I agree with you. I don’t know how you get bad news out 

of that announcement. That announcement took every single constituency who might be worried and said, this is a good thing for 

us, for our businesses, for our unions, for the American people. 

So I just think that that process is an example of how EPA’s 

science came to the fore, and how our experts and our people who 

work so hard got an opportunity to see a happy day. No one was 

happier than those scientists on that day. 

So thank you very much, Madam Chair. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. The next panel consists of John B. Stephenson, the Director, Natural Resources and Environment, at the 

U.S. Government Accountability Office. 

Director Stephenson, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN B. STEPHENSON, DIRECTOR, NATURAL 

RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Inhofe, and 

other Members who are here, I am pleased to be here today to discuss the importance of scientific integrity and transparency at the 

EPA. 

My statement is based on our past work on both EPA’s integrated risk information system, or IRIS, and EPA’s Federal advisory committees and their use, such as the Science Advisory Board. 

Our work last year on IRIS, as you remember, which is a data 

base that contains the agency’s scientific position on the potential 

human health effects of more than 540 chemicals, identified significant concerns about both the lack of transparency in the process 

and the resulting effect on the credibility and integrity of these assessments. 

We noted that the consequences of these problems were very serious because IRIS assessments, after all, are the cornerstone of 

EPA’s ability to ensure scientifically sound environmental decisions, policies and regulations. We also found that the timeframes 

for completing assessments were unacceptably long, often taking 

over a decade to complete. In many cases, assessments became obsolete before they could be finalized and were stuck in the endless 

loop of assessment and reassessment. 

Last year, we testified before this Committee about EPA’s lack 

of progress in streamlining IRIS and our frustration in its lack of 

response to our recommendations. Indeed, the process that EPA 

unveiled in April, 2008 a year ago was a step backward and worse 

than the one it replaced. 

As a result of this serious and seemingly intractable problem, we 

added IRIS to GAO’s January, 2009 report on Governmentwide 

high-risk areas needing increased attention by executive agencies 

and the Congress. 

Today, I am pleased to report that while it is too soon to offer 

a blanket endorsement, the new IRIS process introduced by EPA 

on May 21 of this year appears to be a step in the right direction. 

In particular, we are pleased that the new IRIS process, if man-
32 

aged effectively, will be largely responsive to the recommendations 

we made in our March, 2008 report. 

First, the process will be managed by EPA, rather than OMB, as 

the former process was. Second, it addresses a key transparency 

concern by expressly requiring that all written comments provided 

by other Federal agencies on draft IRIS assessments be part of the 

public record. 

Third, the new process streamlines the previous one by consolidating and eliminating several steps. Most importantly, the step 

under which the Federal agencies could have IRIS assessments 

suspended in order to conduct additional research, a step which 

would have defeated the intent of basing IRIS assessments on the 

best available science. 

And fourth, the request for an increase of $5 million and 10 additional staff positions will help ensure that more resources are allocated to the IRIS program to meet user needs. Of course, the ultimate success of IRIS will depend upon how effectively EPA implements the new process. 

While these changes reflect a significant improvement that can 

help EPA restore the integrity and productivity of this critical program, we believe additional clarification is needed for some elements of the new process. Specifically, it is not clear whether significant agreements reached among the Federal agencies during 

interagency consultation meetings will be documented in the public 

record. Nor is it clear to us why comments from other Federal 

agencies cannot be solicited at the time the initial draft is sent to 

independent peer reviewers and the public. 

These changes would enhance transparency, further reduce the 

overall assessment timeframes, and provide greater assurance that 

the draft had not been inappropriately biased by policy considerations of agencies affected by the outcome, such as the Departments of Defense and Energy. 

Finally, it is unclear whether or how OMB or other White House 

offices will be involved in the new process. 

Switching gears a bit, I would like to briefly summarize our work 

on EPA’s scientific advisory committees and offer some cautions 

about how they are formed and used. EPA currently has 24 separate Federal advisory committees that help ensure scientific integrity by providing advice and expert peer review. We have made a 

number of recommendations to EPA to improve the independence 

and credibility of peer review panels convened by the Science Advisory Board, one of EPA’s largest and most prominent Federal advisory committees. 

EPA implemented our recommendations, enhancing its assurance 

that relevant conflicts of interest are identified and addressed, and 

that the committees are balanced in terms of points of view. However, we believe that wider use of these same policies and procedures by EPA’s other scientific advisory committees could help 

more broadly ensure that committee work is not jeopardized by allegations of conflicts of interest or bias. 

We also believe that there are opportunities for EPA to use its 

scientific advisory committees, such as the Children’s Health Advisory Protection Committee, more effectively and proactively than 

they have in the past. 
33 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes a summary of my statement. I will 

be happy to answer questions that you or other members of the 

Committee may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Stephenson follows:] 
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Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you very much, Director. 

Let me first tell you how much we appreciate the work that you 

did back in, I guess, 2008, on the original IRIS process, which as 

GAO found lent itself to interference, perhaps even capture, and 

was not consistent with the transparency that one expects for this 

type of determination, where the life and health of Americans will 

be at stake. 

So it was good work. We appreciate it. And I am delighted that 

you have come back to review the remedy, and I think the recommendations that you make for EPA are very helpful on that. 

I would like to follow up a little bit on this question of the 

science advisory boards. You have indicated a distinction between 

two methodologies. One is a sort of representative methodology 

where you get an industry scientist and somebody else and they become proxies for different interest groups. And the other is a process whereby you try to get people who are the best scientists and 

you bring them in to give their best judgment. And that those are 

two different approaches. 

When Administrator Johnson was in charge, we often heard that 

where there was some uncertainty or where there was some doubt, 

that created a range of reasonable decisionmaking for the Administrator and he could therefore decide, based on the doubt, to err, 

say, toward the industry side of the equation. 

It strikes me that there is a circularity here. If you use the representative model, bringing in scientists who would ordinarily have 

a conflict of interest, but are exempted from conflict of interest 

rules in order to provide the industry point of view, and they conflict with the legitimate science or with the environmental science 

point of view, by using that representative mechanism, you have 

created doubt in your science advisory panel. 

And now you are in a position to say, aha, there is doubt about 

the science from the scientific advisory panel, and therefore I now 

have authority not to go where the science would ordinarily dictate. 

And it seems that there is almost a feedback loop between the 

Administrator’s discretion to avoid the science based on doubt and 

uncertainty, which he referred to over and over again in hearings, 

and the doubt and uncertainty that is inherently created when you 

have this turned into kind of a mini-legislative body instead of a 

peer science body. 

Would you comment on that? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Yes. I think both roles are appropriate. I mean, 

you want representative scientific advisory committees to represent 

special groups, industry or whatever. That is appropriate. But you 

also want a set of advisory committees that are advising the Government. They are special Government employees, if you will, on 

the integrity in the science. And our only caution is that you 

shouldn’t confuse the two types of groups and you should use them 

appropriately. 

We think as a general rule that having stronger conflict of interest policies and procedures for assigning the members or selecting 

the members of those committees are nevertheless still important. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you. 

Senator Inhofe. 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 
63 

You had stated in your opening statement, Mr. Director, that the 

IRIS approach now is a step in the right direction. And I notice 

that Chairman Boxer and I both have this same chart. This is one 

that was put together of the revised IRIS process post-April 10th 

of 2008. 

Now, we are supposedly streamlining the way it assesses the 

health effects of chemicals. The EPA is removing some of the steps 

of the integrated risk information system review process. That is 

what we are talking about here, some of the steps. 

Now, it looks like a busy chart. It looks like a lot of steps, probably a lot of them I would find that were not necessary. But EPA 

specifically is cutting back internal EPA review. It is cutting back 

peer review, cutting back OMB review, and cutting back the international partner review. 

Now, if they are cutting back all of these, why do you say that 

is a step in the right direction? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Well, I don’t think they are cutting them out 

entirely. In our view, and this is a preliminary view, they have consolidated some of those assessments that the other Federal agencies will provide. 

Senator INHOFE. OK. Well, specifically, look at the OMB interagency review and the revised assessment post-peer review. Where 

were they combined with something else to preserve the integrity 

of their review? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Well, in our view, they could consolidate the 

agency input as well as the industry input and any other stakeholder input at the same time, and consider those and do it in a 

very public way. All the research and information provided by the 

Federal agencies, as well as any other stakeholder, could be considered at that time. 

Senator INHOFE. So you are saying that there is OMB interagency review now, in this revised IRIS system that is in place 

today? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. What we are saying is it is not clear how the 

White House offices will be involved in this particular process. And 

we think that needs to be clarified and that needs to be strengthened. We are certainly not against agency input to the IRIS process. It just should be scientific research, the same as any other 

stakeholder should be. It should be done in public, very transparent. 

Senator INHOFE. OK, I would like to ask the same thing of you 

that I did of the Administrator, that you would submit in writing, 

for the record, which of these steps that were in this chart that you 

have seen and have worked with, that are eliminated or combined, 

and where they are combined. Would you do that? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. We will be happy to do that. 

Senator INHOFE. OK. Some comments were made by Senator 

Whitehouse about the science. He referred to industry science and 

environmental science. Is it your effort? I think we are all interested in having both sciences, as they are kind of conflicting 

sciences. 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Absolutely. 

Senator INHOFE. Would it be your wish, whether it is on a scientific advisory board or elsewhere, to have equal input if we are 
64 

characterizing by either environmental or industry? My personal 

feeling is there shouldn’t be a difference. Science should be science 

and it should be blind to industry and environment. 

Mr. STEPHENSON. I absolutely agree. IRIS is supposed to be a collection and synthesis of the available science on a given chemical 

at a given time, and certainly everybody has a research and science 

that is relevant to that. I don’t make a distinction between industry 

science and environmental science. 

Senator INHOFE. But if some of the scientists come from an association or an industry that could be made appear to be prejudiced, 

would you make the effort to have the other side also? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Absolutely. That is written out in the scientific 

advisory committee rules that you should have all points of view 

equally represented. 

Senator INHOFE. All right. Thank you very much. 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Certainly. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Chairman Boxer. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. How unusual for me to be able to call on 

you. 

Senator BOXER. Well, thank you very much. I greatly appreciate 

it. 

Let me just say to GAO and to you personally, Mr. Stephenson, 

a great big thank you for the work that you did, because when I 

called you in here and we found out what was going on, there was 

some grave concern. And I don’t disagree with anything Senator 

Inhofe said, but that’s not what was going over there. 

And this is what the process was when you took a look at it. By 

the way, this is only part of it, because here it says, Federal agencies identify mission-critical chemicals, and if no new studies, then 

go to step 14. Step 14 isn’t even on here because they didn’t have 

space for it, so there is more. And then over here it says, public 

listening session for comment on draft assessment announced in 

FRN in step 17(a). And that’s not even on this particular sheet. 

So what was going on over there? If I could just say what I would 

have entitled this thing, it is how to kill scientific risk assessment. 

That is what I think was going on. They were killing it. They were 

killing it by dint of the process. They were killing it by inviting the 

polluters to the table. That is not what this is. 

I want to protect my little baby grandson from getting cancer 

from a lot of chemicals that are out there. I know we all feel the 

same way. So therefore, I want a system based on science, not 

based on politics, not based on having the polluter at the table. Of 

course, they are going to argue that their chemical is safe. We saw 

the makers of arsenic say that their chemical was safe. So they are 

all going to say it is safe. 

Well, now we have a new assessment. It is understandable to 

people. It is streamlined, which I would think the other side would 

like. And the question that Senator Inhofe asked was fine. He said, 

how do we get the other agencies in? It is right here in step 6(b), 

EPA-led interagency scientific discussion. And therefore, they are 

going to listen. But EPA will lead it. They are not going to let these 

other folks lead it. 
65 

So let me ask you a couple of questions in my remaining time. 

Do you think in general, and I get your specific criticism of EPA 

and I think they have to address them, but do you think in general 

that the most recent changes help to ensure transparency when developing IRIS assessments and the changes ensure that EPA controls the development of such assessments, rather than having the 

polluters control it? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Well, we are GAO, so we are naturally skeptical, and we reserve judgment to see how it is implemented. We 

think that is very important. But in general, it does allow for all 

of the research considered in the IRIS process to be publicly available equally, whether it is an agency or an industry or any other 

environmental group. 

Senator BOXER. Good. And of course, it has to be implemented 

right. And in your own report here, which the Chairman has handed me, the IRIS reforms, if implemented effectively, will represent 

significant improvements. Among other things, they restore EPA’s 

control of the process and increase transparency. 

But your hesitation is that it has got to be implemented in the 

right way. Correct? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Correct. And we do say that it does go toward 

implementing most of the recommendations that we made in our 

April, 2008 report. We just haven’t done a full analysis of it. 

Senator BOXER. How long will you need until we call you back 

to let us know if you think they are implementing it effectively? 

Will it take 6 months, a year? Because we want to stay on top of 

it through this Oversight Subcommittee. 

Mr. STEPHENSON. We want to see what kind of progress they 

make on the first problematic assessments of some chemicals that 

have been in the process for over a decade. Now, maybe they have 

been in a decade for very good reasons, but in general, we want to 

see if the Administrator can meet her commitment of 23 months 

on average for an assessment. So I would say at least a year. 

Senator BOXER. So, we will have you back in a year to see what 

the progress is. 

Senator Whitehouse, I hope that you will do this in a year. 

Now, last question. In your opinion, how important is it to ensure that scientific panels base their decisions on the best available 

science, not other considerations? Could agencies improve their 

methods for ensuring the use of the best available science? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Absolutely. We think that there are many EPA 

advisory committees. And as I said, they serve multiple purposes. 

The best available science is for the FACA Committee that is an 

important goal. And we have noted in the past that EPA can use 

these advisory committees more effectively and proactively than 

they have in the past. So we will be watching that as well. 

Senator BOXER. OK. Let me say finally, again, you know, there 

is a lot of times you do a lot of reports and nothing much happens, 

and I don’t like that. This time, a lot has happened and implementation is the key, but you have to feel good that you made a big 

change happen here in the IRIS program. So I just want to thank 

you. 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Thank you. That is our job. 
66 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. And now finally the distinguished and 

very patient Senator from Delaware, Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Stephenson, welcome. It is good to see you. Thank you for 

joining us today and for the work that you and your colleagues at 

GAO do. 

As you know, the EPA’s integrated risk information program and 

its data base contain the EPA’s scientific position on the potential 

human health effects of exposure to I believe more than 540 chemicals. And you stated before that the system has received an increase in funds and in resources, but we still have some ways to 

go to have all the information we need in order to fully understand 

the true human health impacts of certain chemicals. 

I am concerned that the missing data in IRIS will delay air toxic 

policy decisions. And first of all, let me just ask you to just talk 

with us about is there a better way to collect this information; 

what are some of the options; how are we collecting that information now; how might we collect it more prudently in the future. 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Of course, assessments of air toxins are also 

some of those 540 that you mentioned. And what we said in our 

2008 report is that early planning could really help if EPA on either a two or even a 3-year window out could identify, along with 

the program offices within EPA, the assessments that were vitally 

needed to implement the air toxics program and other Clean Air 

Act programs. 

We think that would go a long way to informing the research 

community what was going to be needed such that it would be 

available when the IRIS assessment on that particular chemical 

started. We think that would go a long way toward streamlining, 

making more efficient the overall assessment of all chemicals, including air toxins. 

Senator CARPER. Now, who have you shared that notion with? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. We actually recommended that in our 2008 report on IRIS. And early planning can really help in that regard. We 

had I think 15 or 20 recommendations in that report for improving 

the then-IRIS process. 

Senator CARPER. And who at EPA has responded to those recommendations in that report? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. They haven’t been responded to specifically in 

detail. There is a 60-day requirement for all Federal agencies to respond to GAO recommendations and provide that information to 

the Congress as well. And we haven’t done as good a follow up on 

that as we could have. We are in the process of doing that now to 

see exactly what has been done toward each of those recommendations. 

Senator CARPER. Has the 60-day clock already run? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Oh, yes. That was an April, 2008 report. 

Senator CARPER. Well, we are coming up on a 460-day clock. Is 

that right? 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. OK. Of the recommendations that were included, did you say 20? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. I am doing it by recollection, but there were a 

lot. 
67 

Senator CARPER. But what were some of the most important 

ones? You may have said this already. 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Well, early planning. We highlighted the need 

for transparency. We don’t have objections to anybody providing research for EPA to consider on a given chemical. We just think it 

should be very transparent. The research should be publicly available for the whole scientific community to look at. We offered lots 

of opportunities for streamlining the process, eliminating what we 

thought as redundant steps or unnecessary steps. 

So they went the whole gamut of what we called a broken system 

back a year ago. 

Senator CARPER. I presume that there has been an informal dialog back and forth between GAO and EPA over the last years. Is 

that true, on these points? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Somewhat. I mean, we don’t have specific work 

going on IRIS right now, looking at the new process. We think, and 

as I think the Committee thinks, it is better to give the EPA a little bit of opportunity to respond to the process that they just introduced May 21st, and implement it, and then we think it would be 

appropriate for you all to request GAO, for us to take another look 

at IRIS down the road. 

Senator CARPER. You just kind of answered the last question I 

was going to ask, what should we be doing differently, or to follow 

on? 

Mr. STEPHENSON. I think just holding oversight hearings like 

this, keeping the hearings process going; continuing to emphasize 

scientific integrity; and look at all the individual elements of the 

agency process that result in good integrity at the agency. I think 

we are making progress. I think we are on the right track. 

Senator CARPER. OK. And my last question is, what kind of job 

do you think that Senator Whitehouse is doing in chairing this 

hearing today? 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. STEPHENSON. An absolutely splendid job. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARPER. I think he is doing his best. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. That may need further investigation. 

Senator CARPER. I have never seen him quite this good. 

So thank you for joining us today. 

Mr. STEPHENSON. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Senator Whitehouse, thank you for pulling us 

all together. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you very much, Senator Carper. 

Thank you, Mr. Stephenson. You are excused, but with the appreciation of the Committee for a job well done. And I think as the 

Chairman said, you must feel considerable satisfaction in seeing 

such swift results under this Administration of the recommendations that GAO offered in the past. So again, congratulations and 

well done. 

Mr. STEPHENSON. It is nice to see you all use our work. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. While the next panel is joining us, I will 

add to the record of these proceedings, without objection, a letter 

received from John Holdren, the Assistant to the President for 

Science and Technology and the Director of the Office of Science 
68 

and Technology Policy, who overseas official travel makes his appearance at this particular hearing impossible, but who wrote to let 

us know of the importance that the President places on this topic, 

and to inform us of the important work on scientific integrity that 

the President has asked the Office of Science and Technology Policy 

to lead, in particular OSTP’s assembly of a task force representing 

all departments and agencies with what are described as ‘‘considerable’’ scientific missions. 

[The referenced document follows:] 
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Senator WHITEHOUSE. The task force has, in the Federal Register, filed a notice requesting public comments on the President’s 

memorandum and its six guiding principles. If anybody wishes to 

comment into that process, the email address is 

scientificintegrity@ostp.gov. And he encourages public input so that 

the process of continuing to enhance transparency and scientific integrity in this Administration can continue forward. 

And now it is my pleasure to welcome Dr. Grifo, Dr. Green and 

Dr. Goldman. You seem to be narrowed in a short bandwidth of the 

alphabet today. But we are delighted to have you with us. We appreciate the work that you have done in the past, and I turn the 

hearing over to you for your statements. 

Dr. Grifo. 

STATEMENT OF FRANCESCA GRIFO, SENIOR SCIENTIST AND 

DIRECTOR, SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY PROGRAM, UNION OF 

CONCERNED SCIENTISTS 

Ms. GRIFO. Good morning. My name is Francesca Grifo, as you 

have said, and I am a Senior Scientist and Director of the Scientific 

Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a leading 

science-based non-profit working for a healthy environment and a 

safer world. 

Thank you, Chairman Boxer in absentia, Chairman Whitehouse, 

and the Ranking Members, also in absentia, and the members of 

the Committee for the opportunity to speak to you this morning. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is at a crossroads. 

The EPA is emerging from a period where agency science was often 

a casualty of political decisions made behind closed doors. Our research documented that 889 scientists personally experienced at 

least once incidence of political interference between 2002 and 

2007. 

The current Administrator, Lisa Jackson, has reversed course on 

many of the most egregious of these decisions and has spoken eloquently about the central role of science and transparency in her 

vision for the EPA. But as the agency faces mounting challenges 

in the coming years, the urge to justify policy decisions with tampered science will remain a constant temptation. 

We urge Administrator Jackson and Congress to go beyond reversing bad policies from the previous Administration and to take 

steps to secure the credibility of future EPA decisions. 

In truth, there is no silver bullet that will forever protect EPA 

science from political manipulation. Any law or policy regime that 

is flexible enough to allow fact-based decisionmaking is vulnerable 

to mischief by unscrupulous policymakers. There is simply no way 

to watch over every data point in its journey from scientist to policy arena. 

But we can increase transparency and power scientists to speak 

out in still broader reforms, and ask Congress to pay attention to 

these issues when drafting legislation and in their oversight. 

Transparency means that the media has access to EPA science 

and scientists. Our finding that 783 scientists disagreed or strongly 

disagreed that EPA policies allow scientists to speak freely to the 

news media about their findings suggests the importance of the implementation of an agency-wide media policy that allows scientists 
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and researchers to freely express their personal views with an explicit disclaimer that they are speaking as private citizens, and not 

seeking to represent official agency policy. 

Public affairs officers also need to have clearly defined and important roles, but are not gatekeepers of information. Our analysis 

of 15 Federal agencies demonstrates that some agencies are already successfully doing this. 

Transparency also means that the public has a right to know the 

extent of outside influence on the EPA. The EPA should institute 

a transparency policy for meetings, including a complete public 

record of all meetings with outside entities. Computers now make 

this possible as a quick addition to the routine of signing in when 

visiting a Federal agency. 

Transparency can protect the integrity of EPA science, and the 

EPA should take steps to ensure that science is not manipulated 

in the regulatory process, specifically by expanding the information 

it shares with the public about its decisions. The EPA’s rulemaking 

docket should contain all scientific studies in an agency’s possession related to proposed regulation, and all official interagency 

communications regarding rules under review, including those from 

the White House. 

The EPA should publish a summary statement discussing the 

scientific basis for any regulatory decisions informed by science. 

EPA whistleblowers are the last bastion against abuses of 

science. The agency scientists have a profound responsibility to the 

U.S. public. To fulfill that responsibility, they need reassurance 

that standing behind their scientific work will not open them to retaliation. 

The House is considering a bipartisan comprehensive whistleblower protection bill. We strongly support that legislation and we 

urge the Senate to strengthen its whistleblower bill, S. 372, in line 

with House reforms. But even before strong whistleblower protection is enacted, we hope that Administrator Jackson will send a 

strong message to agency managers now that Federal scientists 

who raise concerns or expose agency misconduct should not be retaliated against. 

Looking to the future, there are far-reaching reforms that should 

be considered to equip the EPA for the challenges of the 21st century. To prevent political interference in EPA science by other 

agencies, the EPA needs to be empowered to take the lead on crosscutting environmental issues. A 2002 GAO report found merit in 

the idea of elevating the EPA to a Cabinet-level agency and we concur. 

Problems with monitoring and enforcement need to be addressed 

by Congress and the President to ensure that the EPA is the robust environmental agency that our Country needs. The EPA is an 

organization that necessarily houses both scientific and policymaking functions. The interaction between these two functions can 

lead to interference, but is also a source of strength and credibility 

for the organization. 

The science and policy wings of an agency should work as if separated by a semi-permeable membrane that ensures the flow of scientific information and advice from scientists to policymakers to fa-
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cilitate the creation of fact-based policies, but strongly limits how 

policymakers can affect agency scientists. 

Finally, in conclusion, the role for Congress. It is vitally important that Congress continue its oversight of agency programs and 

activities. Risk assessment, cost-benefit analysis, interactions with 

OMB and the Federal advisory committees have all proven fertile 

ground for interference in the past, and I urge this Committee to 

laud Administrator Jackson for her accomplishments, but also to 

exercise its oversight authority and to remain vigilant to abuses of 

science. 

When considering the next generation of environmental and public health laws, I urge Congress to take steps to ensure that those 

laws make use of the best available science and use transparency, 

the empowerment of scientists and other means to increase accountability and create laws that are resistant to political tampering. 

I look forward to working with the Committee on these issues. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Grifo follows:] 
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Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Dr. Grifo. That was a very 

good summation of a very, very thorough statement. I appreciate 

that you sent in the complete statement because it has a lot of 

wonderful material in it, particularly some of the quotes from the 

EPA scientists about the OMB interference. That was very trenchant stuff, and thank you for summarizing it so well. 

Dr. Green. 

STATEMENT OF KENNETH P. GREEN, RESIDENT SCHOLAR, 

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY 

RESEARCH 

Mr. GREEN. Good morning. I would like to thank Chairman 

Boxer, Senator Inhofe, Senator Whitehouse and the Committee for 

having me here today to testify about this very important topic. 

I am, as you said, Kenneth Green, Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. 

I generally like to begin with a few words of my background. By 

training, I am an environmental scientist, having received my doctoral degree in environmental science and engineering from UCLA 

in 1994. I was drawn to that field through a childhood in the San 

Fernando Valley, a very smoggy area when I grew up, where I developed asthma and learned first-hand about the hazards of air pollution. 

I felt love for the environment when with my mother and I 

camped in California’s many State parks and out in the Mojave 

Desert, where we had a placer mining claim and where the air was 

clean, dry and thoroughly healthful. 

In the 1970s when the oil embargo hit, I tried to set up my own 

solar distillery to make fuel ethanol from surplus oranges of my 

neighbors, but the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms 

wouldn’t give a license to distill to a 13-year-old in those days. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. GREEN. I have worked at the intersection of science and public policy since 1990 when I took an internship position as an Environmental Policy Analyst at the now defunct Hughes Aircraft Company, which was then headquartered in Los Angeles, California. 

Both the subject of my doctoral studies and the focus of my work 

involved air quality regulations then being promulgated by the 

California Air Resources Board and the Air Quality Management 

District of the South Coast Air Quality Management District. 

Subsequently, I worked at several think tanks in the United 

States and Canada and my research has broadened to incorporate 

climate change and energy policy analysis at State, provincial and 

Federal levels. 

As more and more of our Nation’s public policy decisions involve 

the use of complex scientific information, I think it becomes more 

and more important that our policymaking institutions make use 

of such information in a process that is unbiased, open to outside 

review and analysis, and allows for the airing of divergent opinion, 

and particularly is deliberative enough to ensure the decisions we 

make are the right ones. 

As recent experience has regretfully shown, this is not always 

the case. Policies intended to mitigate climate change and conventional pollution with the use of corn ethanol, for example, have 
105 

backfired badly. Rather than reducing greenhouse gas emissions, 

there is every evidence that corn ethanol has increased them; rather than reduce conventional air pollution, corn ethanol production 

has increased them, along with polluting surface and groundwater, 

contaminating fish stocks with pesticide and herbicide residues, 

and expanding oceanic dead zones caused by algae which bloom 

when they are over-fed by fertilizer runoff from corn agriculture. 

Most of these problems were raised by nongovernmental analysts 

and outside scientists before the ethanol mandates were passed, 

but the policymaking process proved opaque to such cautionary 

voices. 

Now, warnings are coming from nongovernmental policy analysts 

once again. We may see equally perverse impacts from other forms 

of renewable energy being promoted at breakneck speed through 

the spending of stimulus money in pending legislation involving energy and climate change. 

For example, new scientific reports are validating concerns expressed by energy analysts that concentrated solar power systems 

may have unsustainable water demand and will imperil the fragile 

desert ecosystems I grew up enjoying and would like to see for my 

children and grandchildren safe to enjoy as well. 

Warnings that wind turbines are not environmentally benign are 

also being validated as they are found to cause noise pollution, visual blight, bird and bat kills, and potentially harm livestock. One 

recent study, in fact, also has found that mass transit systems may 

even produce more pollutants than the automobiles and air travel 

they seek to displace. 

Left and right, we are seeing failings of policymaking bodies to 

listen to cautionary voices outside of their own purview in the development of public policy that is based on scientific information. 

The President’s Memoranda on Transparency and Open Government and on Scientific Integrity are a great start, but they can only 

be considered a start in the process to ensure the information is 

used in the process of public policy formation. 

On the plus side, the memoranda correctly identify certain important elements of a transparent process featuring scientific integrity. The President is exactly right when he says political officials 

should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and 

conclusions. 

It is also reassuring the President ordered to the extent permitted by law that there should be transparency in the preparation, identification and use of scientific and technological information in policymaking, and I particularly think the President’s observation that public engagement enhances the Government’s effectiveness and improves the quality of decisions because knowledge 

is widely dispersed in society. That is spot on. 

All too often, however, I have seen an assumption that only scientists working within Government or dependent on governmental 

grants have worthwhile knowledge to inject into public policy decisionmaking. There is, I believe, an inherent bias against scientists 

in the private sector, even though those are the people who, day 

in and day out in laboratories, produce the prescription drugs and 

devices that save millions and who develop the technologies that 

empower billions. 
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The same is true with regard to the President’s and agency emphasis on the peer-reviewed literature. As we have discovered 

through revelations about fraud in the scientific and medical literature, peer review is no guarantee of accuracy. Often, the keys 

to publication are in the hands of those with a vested career interest in preserving a particular theory that gained them prestige and 

standing to be considered as peer reviewers. As a recent article, 

ironically published in the peer-reviewed literature, Journal of 

PLOS Medicine pointed out, most claimed research findings are 

wrong. 

The President, Congress and the regulatory agencies should explicitly recognize there is a legitimate role for nongovernmental 

independent scientific participation in the public policy decisionmaking process in terms of personnel and the injection of scientific 

research materials conducted outside the peer-reviewed literature, 

but by private entities. 

Many times over my career, I have seen a lack of opportunity for 

consultation. I have seen massive scientific reports issued by State 

and Federal Governments before Thanksgiving weekend or just before the Christmas holidays, with minimal time allowed for the review of 1,000-page documents. 

We may see that again in coming months where we have been 

promised the passage of landmark legislation on climate change 

just in time for the Independence Day holidays and most people’s 

summer vacation. That is not what I would call accessibility or 

transparency. 

The rest of my comments I will submit for the record because I 

believe I am running out of time. But to conclude, it must be always remembered that science may be able to tell us what is, but 

it cannot tell us what to do. It is important that science infuse 

processes, but not that we be guided or led by science. We are not 

a scientocracy. 

Public policy formation requires the balance of many factors, social, economic, equity, individual rights, personal responsibilities, 

and more. Openness and transparency and scientific integrity are 

very important, but they are not the only elements that are important in public policy decisionmaking. 

Thank you for providing me the opportunity to speak, and of 

course I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Green follows:] 
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Senator WHITEHOUSE. Dr. Goldman. 

STATEMENT OF LYNN GOLDMAN, PROFESSOR AND PRINCIPAL 

INVESTIGATOR, JOHNS HOPKINS NATIONAL CHILDREN’S 

STUDY 

Ms. GOLDMAN. Thank you, Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe in 

absentia for inviting me to testify before you today. 

As you know, I formerly served at the U.S. EPA in the Clinton 

administration. I am a Professor at Johns Hopkins University. 

This issue of scientific integrity at the EPA is one that is very 

near and dear to my heart. During the time that I was at EPA, 

we worked very hard to try to get the science right to inform regulations, to inform all of our actions, to inform the legislation that 

was being undertaken by this body. 

And we also worked very hard to establish peer review practices 

and other mechanisms to make sure that the external scientific 

community could participate as much as possible and so that they 

could serve as a check, if you may, to make sure that the science 

coming from EPA was completely up to date with the science as it 

is occurring in academia and the rest of society. 

And I think the results of that were a number of science-based 

actions that served to protect the public’s health and the environment, which is, after all, what the mission of the EPA is all about. 

Last year, I appeared before this Committee to testify about my 

concerns about the changes that had been made to EPA’s integrated risk information system, or IRIS. Of course, it is a very 

challenging process to completely assess the toxicity of a chemical. 

It requires the engagement of scientists from very many disciplines 

and the synthesis of a tremendous amount of information. 

And the peer review process is even more difficult because you 

would want the peer reviewers to be very much at the cutting edge 

of the science, and to be capable of being able to review the work 

of EPA scientists who themselves are extraordinarily expert in 

what they do. 

Unfortunately, in the last Administration, actions had been 

taken that undermined that process. The White House Office of 

Management and Budget was in essence placed in charge of that 

process. There were non-transparent processes that allowed other 

agencies to intervene in that process, and even to stop assessments 

of chemicals if they wanted more time to study them. And the last 

word on the toxicity of the chemicals was in the hands of the OMB. 

So I personally am very happy that the EPA under Lisa Jackson’s leadership has restored the integrity of the IRIS process, and 

I think that the new review process makes sense. It is open. It is 

transparent. It allows everybody to play a role, the Federal agencies as well as outside scientists, and it allows the final authority 

over the contents of IRIS listings to be in the hands of EPA, which 

is where it needs to be. 

As I at one point worked in a State agency, I worked for the 

State of California, and I can tell you that everybody relies on 

IRIS, the States, industry. It is a very, very important resource and 

it is one that needs to be protected. 

I have also been pleased with the changes that Lisa Jackson has 

announced to the process for creating the so-called NAAQS, the 
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National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Again, there had been 

some changes made in the last Administration where the so-called 

staff papers that laid out the analysis of EPA scientists were disregarded by decisionmakers, and they were not made available to 

the public. They were not made available to Congress to review. 

And I am happy to see that those have now been restored to the 

proper place in terms of helping to inform decisions, as well as the 

new determination on the part of EPA to listen to its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. 

I will tell you, as a member of the scientific community now, that 

the disputes that were occurring between EPA and CASAC hurt 

EPA terribly in terms of EPA’s credibility with independent scientists and the fact that, you know, the idea that if you were 

brought to EPA to advise the EPA that your advice would not even 

receive a hearing by decisionmakers, then what would motivate 

you to serve as an adviser to EPA? 

Because believe me, those special Government employee assignments take a lot of time. They take you away from your research. 

They take you away from your students. And the only reason it is 

worth doing that is to serve the public, to feel that you are doing 

something in service of EPA. 

In closing, I would like to bring to your attention the work of the 

bipartisan Policy Center’s Science for Policy Project, that is cochaired by Sherwood Boehlert and by Don Kennedy. I happen to 

be a member of this. This is an interim report from this group 

called Improving the Use of Science in Regulatory Policy. And it is 

our hope that these kinds of reports from outside of the Government will be helpful to all of you as you deliberate in the future. 

Thank you again for inviting me to be here with you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Goldman follows:] 
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Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Dr. Goldman. I appreciate 

your testimony, and I thank all of the witnesses for their participation in this hearing. 

This is the first hearing of the Oversight Committee of the Environment and Public Works Committee. And it is a Committee that 

didn’t exist before. This is a joint hearing, and obviously the Chairman, Barbara Boxer, and the Ranking Member, Jim Inhofe, have 

been here during the course of the hearing, and now you are down 

to the Chairman of the Subcommittee, myself, and my distinguished Ranking Member, Senator Barrasso. 

And I would love to hear the advice of the panel on what’s next. 

What are the two or three key things that EPA should focus on in 

order to, I would say reclaim its integrity, but let’s be a little bit 

more technical, to reclaim processes and protocols and standards 

that will protect its integrity? 

Go ahead, Dr. Grifo. 

Ms. GRIFO. Thank you. 

Two or three is hard. I have four. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. OK. 

Ms. GRIFO. Can I stick in four? 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Four is good. 

Ms. GRIFO. I think one of the most important things is going to 

be to draft an agency-wide media policy. I mean, the media are the 

route from EPA to the American people, and we really need to have 

that route opened up. 

The second I would say is just in general providing the public 

with more information about meetings between agency officials and 

outside entities. This has been another source of problems in the 

past. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Can I stop you on the media policy just for 

1 second? 

Ms. GRIFO. Yes. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Just from a management point of view, 

you could get into a situation in which you had an employee who 

was grandstanding with the media, who was using the media to 

undercut administrative authorities or create management problems, to self-aggrandize or stray away from the topic that they 

have been told to handle because they have a personal interest in 

something else. 

There are other motivations for going to the media than just 

plain kind of whistleblowing and transparency. How do you cope 

with those? How do we write a policy or pursue a standard of oversight that allows for some degree of management of the function 

of employees in talking to the media, while at the same time assuring that that doesn’t become an institutional problem that affects 

scientific integrity? 

Ms. GRIFO. I think there are two things. One, I think you are 

aware of our work, our media policy scorecard, where we looked at 

15 agencies. And in fact, there are several agencies that do have 

this kind of a media policy and that hasn’t happened. It has not 

become a giant impediment to the work of those agencies. So I 

think it can happen. 

But I think the second thing is that what we are talking about 

is a personal views exemption. That in other words, the scientist 
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cannot speak for the agency without going through all of those normal channels that we all approve and want to see happen. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. OK. That is a good answer. 

Ms. GRIFO. But rather, you know, it is a personal views exception. They have to stop and take off their agency hat and put on 

their private citizen hat, and then of course, you know, we do have 

the First Amendment, so we want to—— 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Yes. Understood. OK. I didn’t want to stop 

you at one because you had four. 

Ms. GRIFO. OK. So that was two, very quickly. 

The third one I think is really about routinely disclosing more information about the scientific basis for agency decisions. I think 

there are still, you know, big issues that are out there. I think we 

have a number of these issues swirling around. When we look at 

the relationship between the EPA and the Office of Management 

and Budget that are still, I mean obviously we are waiting for the 

new directive to come out of OMB and OIRA to tell us what its role 

is going to be. But I think what is important is OIRA is a creation 

of Congress. OIRA was created by Congress and Congress, you 

know, could limit OIRA and do things in that regard. 

And the last one, last but not least, I think we really would like 

to see Lisa Jackson come out and be very clear with her managers, 

because this is the level at which this is happening. She has come 

out and said in a general sense to employees, but to completely and 

in a focused manner address her managers on how retaliation is 

just not acceptable. Because until we have strong whistleblower 

protections legally enabled, we still are going to have those issues 

because there is this culture and we want to see that culture 

change. 

So those would be my quick four. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. OK. I will come back to it, but my time 

has expired, so I will turn to the distinguished Senator from Wyoming. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a 

pleasure to work with you on this Oversight Committee. I appreciate it. I would say so far you are the finest Chairman that this 

Committee has ever had. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BARRASSO. Dr. Green, if I could just ask you a couple of 

questions. You state in your testimony that there is an assumption 

that only scientists working within Government or dependent on 

Government grants really have worthwhile knowledge to inject into 

public policy decisionmaking. What would you say about scientists 

from environmental special interest groups? Are they treated with 

more credibility? 

Mr. GREEN. I think to a certain extent they are. They are certainly given a place at the table more often, I think, than those 

who are with either non-environmental NGOs or with industrial or 

technological groups. 

I think they are given the benefit of the doubt that they are 

somehow unbiased and not dependent on any sources of income 

that could bias their opinions. And I think that in many cases that 

assumption is open to question. 
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Senator BARRASSO. Well, do you see a reluctance by Federal 

agencies, then, to hire scientists who come from the private sector, 

say, as opposed to environmental special interest groups? And how 

do you see that happening? 

Mr. GREEN. I guess that would perhaps that might depend on the 

Administration. 

Again, there is I think a general belief that somehow being a productive part of an industrial organization or a private organization 

is a tainting thing to be, that there is some taint to actually making things that we rely on in our daily lives, and they are not 

therefore treated with the same level of gravitas. 

There is the other fact, however, which is if you are actually 

doing work in laboratories for the private sector, you are not focusing on peer-reviewed publication. And therefore, the giant emphasis on having a long track record of peer-reviewed publication does 

cut against such people who are busy actually doing their job. 

Senator BARRASSO. You made a comment that I found striking. 

You said that ‘‘While science may be able to tell us what is, it can 

never really tell us what to do.’’ And you know, is there any issue 

today where you believe that policymakers are saying science is 

telling us what to do? 

Mr. GREEN. Well, I mean, absolutely. The biggest issue of the 

day, climate change, is one in which you hear this routinely. The 

science says we must do X. We must achieve this level of greenhouse gas emission reductions over this period of time. The science 

tells us we must. 

Well, that is not the nature of science. Science can tell you the 

nature of a problem. It could tell you what impacts you might get 

from a given reduction of greenhouse gases. But the decision that 

that is the worthwhile or the best investment of the funds you have 

at the time you have them with regard to the other values you hold 

dear, such as economic growth, which also affects health and the 

environment, that decision can only be done on a multiple value assessment. It is not a dictation of science. 

But we hear this regularly, not only with regard to climate 

change, but with regard to chemical exposures, air pollution. 

Science tells us we must do something. As a scientist, I can tell you 

I am the first one who does not want to live in a scientocracy. 

Senator BARRASSO. Dr. Green, if I could go on. I talked with Lisa 

Jackson about my concerns about how there is now an energy and 

a climate czar with oversight over issues involving the Environmental Protection Agency, the Secretary of Interior, Secretary of 

Energy, Secretary of Transportation. 

I just want your thoughts on the creation of an energy and climate czar. Is that going to help or hurt using science correctly in 

developing policy? 

Mr. GREEN. Well, as we found, czars didn’t work terribly well for 

Russia, so it is unclear they are going to work any better for us. 

I think it actually is a very bad precedent. I think the responsibility of the agency heads to the Senate which confirms them is 

very important in terms of openness, transparency and all of the 

things we have talked about today. 

The fact that there is a Government agency or Government person who says explicitly that in order to deny knowledge to the pub-
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lic nothing was written down is deeply troubling, when you talk 

about a decision that could lead to the loss of jobs for tens of thousands of people, change the buying decisions and override the buying decisions of all Americans. I find that to be very troubling, and 

if that is going to be the pattern we see with regard to energy decisionmaking as well, I think it is still more troubling. 

Senator BARRASSO. And then, Dr. Green, I only have about 30 

seconds left. Would you like to respond to any of the other comments you have heard from other panelists today? 

Mr. GREEN. Well, I think there is some general agreement here 

that these are important issues, transparency, openness and consultation. But I think without a meaningful commitment to allowing the time for deliberation, these things are almost all meaningless. I have had the dubious pleasure of reading the IPCC reports 

on science now in their totality every 5 years. And I can tell you, 

you cannot plow through a 1,000-page document of intense scientific information over a weekend in order to submit comments 

within a 15-day or 30-day comment period. 

Without a real commitment to a deliberative time period and the 

end of game-playing with the release before holidays and so forth, 

all of this is relatively meaningless. 

Senator BARRASSO. OK. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have some other additional questions for Dr. Grifo and Dr. Goldman. Perhaps I can submit those 

in writing. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Or we can continue to a second round? 

Senator BARRASSO. No, that is all right. I have an Energy markup, so thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. All right. I wanted to follow up on a point 

that our distinguished Ranking Member just made about, and that 

Dr. Green also did, about the difference between, the perceived difference between Government scientists, scientists representing notfor-profit organizations, and scientists representing the views of 

for-profit private corporations. 

And I concur that it is not a given that because a scientist 

worked for a private corporation, their credibility is diminished or 

their integrity is subject to question. But it does make a bright and 

simple guideline, and it is a bit of a proxy, I would suggest, that 

may not be exactly accurate. But the problem that I see is that 

within the science supported by private for-profit corporations, we 

have seen over and over situations in which the science was really 

deliberately twisted for profit. 

They were real low moments. They could not be characterized by 

scientific integrity. Examples like the American Tobacco Institute 

and its forever campaign to convince people that tobacco was safe. 

The American Lead Institute and its forever campaign to convince 

people that, first, lead was safe; and second, well, OK, it is not 

safe, but you have to eat a flake of lead the size of a potato chip 

before you are actually harmed. 

I think we have to be candid and admit that there is an industry 

of bogus or questionable science that infects a part of the private 

sector. And unfortunately, the private sector has not really made 

any effort to distinguish the legitimate private science from those 

propagandizing efforts. 
123 

And as a result, I think there is a broader taint, and therefore 

people who can’t pick out one thing from the other just think, well, 

there is no risk of private science being corrupt if we don’t bother 

to look at it; if we focus more on the NGOs who don’t have the 

same profit motive, and if we focus on Government scientists who 

don’t have that motive at all. 

So I would urge that one of the things we might consider in this 

Committee as we go forward is trying to make some of those distinctions between what is legitimate science and on what occasions 

the science has just been degraded and turned to industry propagandizing. And unfortunately, there are I think at this point almost 

indisputable examples of that. 

And I would like to ask Dr. Goldman on that point. You have 

said that EPA does its best work in the sunshine. Is it enough in 

terms of trying to make that distinction between legitimate private 

science and private science that has been bought and paid for to 

produce a particular result, the so-called merchants of doubt? Is 

sunshine enough or should there be more attention to those organizations like the American Tobacco Institute and the American Lead 

Institute of the past that frankly don’t meet standards of environmental integrity or credibility? 

Ms. GOLDMAN. Well, I would agree with you that there does need 

to be more attention paid to that. And I have an experience along 

those lines during the time I was at EPA responsible for the regulation of pesticides. Apparently, we were looking at one in particular called phosphine. 

After I left EPA, people involved in the tobacco litigation sent me 

a big folder about phosphine and how the tobacco companies which 

were using this pesticide had put together a group called, I think 

they are called the Phosphine Coalition or some such thing. And 

in this folder was a letter from a private scientific organization, a 

consulting firm that was hired to support them in defending their 

product against EPA and against regulation in which the firm 

promised not only a certain outcome in terms of, we will evaluate 

this chemical and we will come up with this number as the appropriate number to which EPA will regulate it, but they would write 

a paper about that and publish that in the scientific literature before they had done one thing, before they had lifted a single pencil 

to do a risk assessment. 

And you know, reading that, I mean, is that what made my hair 

curl? But it really was something I had suspected was going on behind the scenes, but had never had proof of. And that kind of thing 

just shouldn’t be. And I agree with you that industry has some responsibility to help sort this out and to weed out some of these 

practices that are inconsistent with the best of science. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Yes, I think as you said, there is the risk 

that if industry itself won’t stand up to these abusive practices and 

distinguish its science from them, that they will then suffer some 

of that taint, which I think is unnecessary. 

Senator Barrasso. 

Senator BARRASSO. [Remarks off microphone.] 

Mr. GREEN. Yes, I would like to respond to that question. I think 

you make a good point. The problem with bright lines is that there 

is a side on either side of the line. Bad actors are all around, not 
124 

only in private sector, but in Government. For the example you 

gave about private malfeasance, and my mother died from smoking, so you can’t say anything as bad about the tobacco industry 

as I would. 

But for every instance you have given, I can give another one of 

Government science malfeasance: Tuskegee experiments, radiation 

experiments on airmen during World War II. The Government is 

no stranger to scientific malfeasance any more than the private 

sector is. 

I don’t see grounds for giving a benefit of the doubt to one side 

or the other. I see grounds for actually simply being careful as to 

taking multiple inputs and filtering through them by determining 

whether they are true or false, not who wrote them, not where they 

were published, but whether they are true or false. 

That would be my main response to that point, which is I think 

to say that the people who, as I said, develop the prescription drugs 

that save lives; who develop the pesticides and herbicides that feed 

people more affordably and that lead us to crops which we can export to the world to help address world hunger. 

To say that those people are not virtuous people and that you 

have an assumption that they are putting their personal interests 

ahead of the health of other people’s children and their own children, I think is a somewhat scurrilous thing to say. 

Thank you. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Dr. Grifo, would you care to comment on 

this discussion? You are the one person who has not been included 

so far. 

Ms. GRIFO. Thank you. 

I mean, I think what is very important here are two things: clarity and disclosure. I mean, I think you need to be clear about, you 

know, what is the context, who is it that is speaking and those 

sorts of issues. But the disclosure is critical. I mean, I think you 

are right. Obviously, industry science has done a tremendous 

amount for the American public. You know, we are all consumers 

at one level or another. 

But I think what is important to remember is that we don’t want 

someone who is taking a large amount of money from a company 

that produces a product that an advisory committee is making a 

decision about. I mean that is a clear conflict of interest, and we 

have to guard very closely against those. 

I mean, personally we would like to see them eliminated completely when we are talking about scientific advisory committees. 

We see that industry scientists can come to the committee, can 

present, can answer questions, but when it comes to chairing or cochairing such a committee or voting, that is where we would see 

the distinction and that is where we need the clarity. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. And do you feel that the disclosure at 

present is adequate with respect to let’s divide up membership on 

scientific advisory committees; submission of testimony to scientific 

advisory commissions; and submission of comment to proposed 

rulemakings? Are the standards adequate so that the public and 

the policymakers who are reviewing that material know who has 

what motivations? 
125 

Ms. GRIFO. Yes, I would submit that they are not. I think Dr. 

Goldman mentioned the Bipartisan Policy Center and the work 

that they are doing, and they are wrestling with this issue, and 

wrestling mightily with this issue. And our President, Kevin 

Knobloch, is also on that steering committee. 

I think, you know, what we are looking for here are true disclosure. The two models that are out there that are excellent are the 

National Academies and IARC, which is, you know, the French, the 

World Health Organization. I think both of them are models. They 

look at the very specific issues. 

What I think we need to see, what we institutionally think we 

need to see is for the Office of Government Ethics to come in and 

help with some of these definitions because right now, conflict of 

interest is a little bit of a murky concept, so there is a lot of work 

to be done there. And there are other reforms that we really need 

to consider when we look at FACA, which is the Federal Advisory 

Committee Act. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Well, I appreciate the testimony of the 

witnesses. I appreciate the courtesy of my very distinguished Ranking Member. And I thank everyone for attending this first hearing, 

albeit a joint one, of the Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Oversight. 

The record of the hearing will remain open for an additional 

week if anybody seeks to add any additional materials. 

And if there is nothing further, there is nothing further, and we 

are now adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m. the Committee was adjourned.] 

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