“Rather than adopting the recommendations of the [National Academy of Sciences] and updating their processes, EPA continued to churn out assessments that were summarily rebuked.”
E&E Daily reports:
U.S. EPA’s inspector general’s office announced this week that it is launching a review of the agency’s program for assessing the health effects of chemicals — at the behest of a House Republican.
Eric Lewis, the director of special reviews for the inspector general’s office, notified EPA’s Office of Research and Development that he has initiated a review of its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS).
IRIS’s chemical assessments are often the building blocks of EPA regulations. The program has been frequently criticized, however, for its laggard pace of completing assessments and, in some cases, its scientific methodologies.
Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), the chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, consequently asked the inspector general in late February to review what branches of EPA are relying on IRIS assessments in their regulatory decisionmaking…