In the wake of the Trump administration decision Dismantle From the American Environmental Protection Agency, a robust Californian agency, although little known known as the environmental health risk assessment, is about to play an even more important role in filling the gap.
EPA announced this month Eliminate nearly 4,000 employees As part of a “reduction in force” that saves costs, the majority of whom are staff of their research and development office – whose research on environmental risks and dangers underlies almost all the rules and regulations of EPA. The reduction will allow the agency to save $ 748.8 million, officials said.
“Under the direction of President Trump, the EPA examined our operations closely to ensure that the agency is better equipped than ever to deliver our main mission to protect human health and the environment while fueling the American return,” said a declaration by the EPA administrator Lee Zeldin. “This reduction in force will guarantee that we can better fulfill this mission while being guards responsible for your hard -won taxes.”
The COD was active since the EPA was created by President Richard Nixon in 1970 and focused on carrying out scientific research to help advance the EPA objectives to protect human health and the environment.
Experts said that the decision to break the research office sends a scary signal for science and would leave more communities exposed to environmental risks such as industrial chemicals, forest smoke and polyfluoroalkyle – or PFA – in drinking water, which are all subject to ministry analysis.
“The inhabitants of this country are not well served by these actions,” read a declaration by Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, former main assistant director of EPA for science. “They are left more vulnerable.”
He also moves the burden on California and other states to fill the vacuum left by the federal government. Ord’s research supported the work around the cleaning of the Superfund site and environmental disasters such as Los Angeles forest fires or eastern Palestine, Ohio, the derailment of trains.
“There will be another eastern Palestine, another Exxon Valdez [oil spill] – A catastrophe will occur … and these communities will be injured when they do not have to be, “said Tracey Woodruff, professor at UC San Francisco and former main scientist and political advisor to the EPA Policy Office.
The Golden State seems better positioned than many others continue the work – in particular through the small but powerful office of the evaluation of environmental health risks, or OEHHA, located within California Environmental Protection Agency.
“California has developed a fairly robust infrastructure for a certain time to assess the health damage to chemicals and toxic pollutants,” said Woodruff. “So, in this way, we are better off than almost any other state because we have a group of scientists as stellar.”
Indeed, California is known for some of its more rigorous health standards and regulations, such as the Proposal 65 warnings Posted by state companies to advise people from the presence of cancer cancer chemicals, which are supervised by the OEHAA.
By driving the IT, the EPA more politicizes the independent science and research which underlies so many regulations of the country, said Yana Garcia, secretary of environmental protection in California. While California remains dedicated to such a science, she said that other states could not be so lucky.
“We will continue to keep the work of Oehha strong and to remain attached to her, but we always have a control of what this loss really means,” said Garcia. “It’s a huge loss for California. It is an even greater loss for so many other states that do not have an environmental health risk assessment office like us. ”
Kris Thayer, the director of Oehha, came to the Order agency, where she directed her Iris program To identify and characterize the risks for human health of chemicals. She said that the state “let’s absolutely look at all the ways that we can fill the void given our resources, but we will feel the pinch of this”.
“It is not only that the quantity of evaluations will be reduced, but the credibility of the evaluations will be reduced, because they will be developed by programs where there are many more opportunities for political interference in terms of science that is shaped,” she said.
The chemical industry and other anti-regulatory groups have put pressure for the EPA to limit the influence of the IT. A January letter Address in Zeldin led by the American Chemistry Council and 80 other organizations said that the risk assessments developed by Ord were “used to develop too heavy regulations on essential critical chemings for the products we use every day”.
In particular, they cited the government’s evaluation of chemicals, in particular formaldehyde, inorganic arsenic and hexavalent chrome, which can be used or created by industrial processes. The groups accused the agency of a lack of impartiality and transparency, a slow process and a limited peer exam.
Thayer noted that numerous evaluation works carried out by Ord is used in California. On the other hand, a number of EPA states and programs are also turning to California assessments.
“We are going to monitor how it goes, but we will certainly try to do our best to meet the capacity – we will not be able to meet it fully – and to recognize that our work will not only have an impact on California, but also to be used by other states,” she said.
Garcia said California has hired a number of people from the federal government in the past year and is open to more recently dismissed EPA employees. Oehha has a Number of open positions.
“California remains open to [a] Rigorous and scientific approach to health and environmental protections, ”said Garcia.
Woodruff, UCSF, said it hoped to see California and other states investing more in the OEHA and other scientific agencies by offering better wages and strengthening staff. But in the end, she said that the Golden State can use this moment to become an example to follow for others.
“California could be a real leader for all other states that also want to continue to do good by their voters and continue to deal with exposure to toxic chemicals,” she said.
