Updating its earlier story (see this 10/30/04 ILB entry), the Washington Post reports today, in a story headlined "EPA Suspends Study on Kids And Pesticides," that:
The Environmental Protection Agency has suspended a controversial study aimed at exploring how infants and toddlers absorb pesticides and other household chemicals, officials said yesterday.The LA Times has a story today headlined "Environment Officials See a Chance to Shape Regulations: With reelection of Bush, EPA plans to promote a pro-industry agenda. Critics fear an overhaul of decades-old protections." The article begins:Several rank-and-file EPA scientists had questioned the ethics of the two-year experiment, which would have given the families of 60 children in Duval County, Fla., $970 each as well as a camcorder and children's clothing in exchange for having the children participate. The critics said low-income Floridians might continue to use pesticides -- which have been linked to neurological damage in children -- in their homes to qualify for the project.
Environmentalists had also criticized the study because the industry-funded American Chemistry Council had agreed to pay $2 million of the project's approximately $9 million cost.EPA spokeswoman Cynthia Bergman said officials had asked a group of independent experts to reexamine the study design, which has already been reviewed by several independent panels of academics, officials of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and representatives of the Duval County Health Department. The new panel is set to give the EPA its assessment next spring.
Emboldened by President Bush's victory, the nation's top environmental officials are claiming a broad mandate to refashion the regulation of air and water pollution and wildlife protection in ways that will promote energy production and economic development.Posted by Marcia Oddi at November 10, 2004 03:46 PM"The election was a validation of the philosophy and the agenda," said Mike Leavitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. Environmental protections, he said, must be done "in a way that maintains the economic competitiveness of the country."
Leavitt pointed out that four more years give administration officials an opportunity to mold the environmental agency's professional staffs to more closely reflect their priorities. Leavitt said 35% of the EPA's staff would become eligible to retire in the next four years, giving him a chance to remake from the inside out the agency that takes the lead in enforcing air and water pollution and the cleanup of toxic dumps.
Administration officials spoke of a renewed commitment to long-standing priorities. For example, James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said President Bush would not reconsider regulating carbon dioxide emissions — despite scientific alarm over global warming — because such a policy would hurt the domestic coal industry and send jobs overseas.