DOG EATS EPA’S HOMEWORK….NEWS AT 11….The Bush administration war on reality continues:
When the Environmental Protection Agency unveiled a rule last week to limit mercury emissions from U.S. power plants, officials emphasized that the controls could not be more aggressive because the cost to industry already far exceeded the public health payoff.
What they did not reveal is that a Harvard University study paid for by the EPA, co-authored by an EPA scientist and peer-reviewed by two other EPA scientists had reached the opposite conclusion.
That analysis estimated health benefits 100 times as great as the EPA did, but top agency officials ordered the finding stripped from public documents, said a staff member who helped develop the rule.
But here’s the worst part: the EPA’s excuse for not considering the Harvard report was that it was submitted past the EPA’s deadline. Not the results of the study, mind you, which were submitted on time, but the final i’s dotted and t’s crossed report, which was submitted a few weeks later.
That’s your EPA at work. Any port in a storm when inconvenient research results pop their unruly heads through the door. The next time this happens I expect them to claim the report got lost in interoffice mail. Or fell in a puddle. Or was typed in the wrong font.
Sheesh.
