Clearing the air on the EPA

In his opening statement at last week’s House Energy and Commerce hearing about the EPA’s 2013 budget, Mr. Barton of Texas came as close as any Republican ever has to reading EPA Director Lisa P. Jackson the riot act about the agency’s ever-increasing contempt for science, economics, Congress and even the Constitution. While much of the aforesaid is widely known but typically left unsaid by timid congressional Republicans, Mr. Barton also raised an issue that should shock the conscience of anyone concerned about ethics in government: financial conflict-of-interest among EPA science advisers. “I want to discuss the EPA’s science and research funding and support activities such as the quality assurance supervisory budget and the committees that monitor the EPA’s internal activities,” Mr. Barton told Ms. Jackson. “You fund research with grants to people who also serve on your review committees. Is this a conflict of interest? Almost every single member of your Clean Air Science Advisory Committee has been directly or indirectly funded for research. This hand-and-glove policymaking by those appointed to also do your research and being funded by you at the same time is not appropriate. They are often asked to review other research they themselves were a party to on the original research team.How could one possibly expect them to be objective in any way?” JunkScience.com undertook to put some meat on the bones of what Mr. Barton alleged and discovered that of the seven members of CASAC, six have received or still are receiving substantial sums in the form of research grants from the agency...more