The Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to decimate the Office of Research and Development (ORD) will reduce the agency’s ability to protect public health and the environment, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
ORD, which includes the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) program, conducts science assessments that serve as the scientific basis for many of the nation’s environmental protections, including limits on toxic air pollution.
Below is a statement by Chitra Kumar, the managing director of the Climate and Clean Energy Program at UCS and the former director of the Office of Policy, Partnerships, and Program Development in the EPA's Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights.
“EPA’s Research and Development Office produces independent science that’s used to keep people safe from pollution and chemical exposure. Industry doesn’t always like what’s coming out of this office, and I believe that’s why it was put on the chopping block.
“ORD is intentionally separate from EPA’s policy offices, ensuring it produces unbiased studies. Its research is transparent and always subjected to rigorous, independent external peer review. As a result, the science it produces is world class. Moving ORD scientists into policy offices could subject those experts to political influence, particularly in this administration.
“Dismantling this office, along with the administration’s plans to reclassify scientists as political appointees through the new job category ‘Schedule Policy/Career’ could very well turn a premier science agency into a political arm of the president.”
Statement by Darya Minovi, senior analyst with the Center for Science and Democracy at UCS.
“Weakening the IRIS program means that EPA will no longer have the capacity to rigorously review the research on chemicals in our air and water that may be extremely damaging to public health. Instead, several scientists will be moved into EPA’s chemical safety office led by a former chemical industry lobbyist strictly for the review of new chemicals awaiting approval. Without ORD staff to research chemicals for which there aren’t applications, we never would have learned the extent of the dangers of PFAS. It’s that kind of research that I’m worried about losing.”
Additional Resources:
• A letter to members of Congress from more than 123 environmental, public health, science and community organizations, and businesses that oppose the closure of ORD and oppose legislation prohibiting the EPA from relying on scientific assessments produced by ORD’s Integrated Risk Information System program.
• Minovi’s blog "Who Benefits from Dismantling EPA Science?"