Big Government and Bad Science: Ten Case Studies in Regulatory Abuse
by Sen. James Inhofe, Steven Milloy, Philip Peters, Bonner R. Cohen, Dennis Avery, Henry I. Miller, R.J. Smith, Hugh Wise, David L. Lewis on 11/30/1999
27 Pages
Big Government and Bad Science: Ten Case Studies in Regulatory Abuse
SUVs: Another Case of Missing EPA Data
EPA claims that by tightening tailpipe emissions for sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) and requiring lower sulfur content in gasoline, 2,400 lives will be saved annually as a result of lower levels of particulate matter. However, the agency's calculations of lives saved are based on an EPA-funded study whose data have not been subjected to public scrutiny. Basing regulations on “secret science” is poor public policy.
The Incredible Shrinking Supercomputer
Current government efforts to keep America's cutting-edge computer technology out of the hands of unfriendly nations cannot keep pace with rapid advances in the high-tech field. While our security concerns are legitimate, the present system simply reduces US high-tech exports, thereby undercutting US dominance in information technology.
Safe Drinking Water: Politics Trumps Science
By ignoring the recommendations of its own scientists and torpedoing a science-based standard for chloroform in drinking water, EPA is forcing water system operators across the country to expend precious resources fighting fictitious risks. In taking this ill-advised step, EPA has violated the Safe Drinking Water Act and ignored its own draft cancer guidelines.
Hypoxia: The Dead Zone Lives
An elaborate scheme devised to combat the alleged threat posed by the “dead zone,” where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico, solves a problem that doesn't exist. The hypoxia zone is a natural phenomenon, and efforts to clamp down on Midwestern farmers' use of fertilizer will only end up harming Gulf fisheries.
Biotechnology: EPA vs. Plants
EPA's plans to regulate genetically modified plants as if they were pesticides has outraged the scientific community and virtually eliminated commercial R&D in this promising sector of biotechnology. Instead of hailing the work of scientists who have made plants more resistant to insects, viruses, bacteria, and fungi, EPA wants to impose a regulatory straight-jacket on a technology that could help alleviate hunger around the world.
The Endangered Species Act: Shoot, Shovel, and Shut Up
Contrary to the claims of its proponents, the Endangered Species Act is not responsible for a single one of the 27 species that have been removed from the Endangered Species List. Instead of protecting species, the ESA has been cynically used as a cover for cost-free land-use control. Sadly, is has also turned landowners against species.
PCBs: EPA Occupies the Hudson Valley
Even though the alleged cancer threat posed by PCBs has been debunked by recent peer-reviewed scientific findings, EPA still insists on ridding the Hudson River of these slowly dissipating chemicals. To accomplish this, EPA plans to transform the Upper Hudson River Valley into a giant Superfund site, complete with dredging. But the dredging will only stir up the PCBs.
Factory Farming: Destroying Parkland to Save Rivers
By aiming its regulatory guns at “confined animal feeding operation,” or CAFOs, EPA may inadvertently end up contributing to more agricultural manure finding its way into rivers and streams. CAFOs are under zero-discharge restrictions, which is not the case with free-range farm animals. It is the manure run-off from free-range chickens and hogs that poses the real environmental problem.
How Common Chemicals Became “Toxic Pollutants”
Environmental regulations are replete with references to “toxic pollutants” and “hazardous pollutants,” but these terms owe their existence not to scientific findings but to poorly-written laws and to a long-forgotten consent decree. Ignoring the cardinal rule of toxicology — the dose makes the poison — we have allowed industrial chemicals to be seen as being inherently toxic, an implication without scientific merit.
EPA: Science without Biology
In its thirty years of existence, EPA has never developed a reliable means for predicting how long industrial pollutants will persist in the environment. The agency's neglect of microbiology seriously undermines the credibility of the agency's understanding of the chemicals it regulates.
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