The best “science” money can buy.
The EPA’s most recent regulations for ground-level ozone are reputed to be the most expensive EPA regulations ever, costing trillions of dollars.
The EPA’s rules were endorsed by a panel of scientists required by law to review them — called the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC). Both the Clean Air Act and the Federal Advisory Committee Act required that CASAC panels be independent and unbiased.
So was the panel independent and/or unbiased?
Below are listed the panel members at the amount of money they received in EPA grants, according to documents obtained from the EPA:
- Dr. H. Christopher Frey, North Carolina State University — $3,136,162
- Mr. George A. Allen, North east States for Coordinated Air Use Management — $3,907,111
- Mt., Ed Avol, University of Southern California — $67,163,221
- Dr. Michelle Bell, Yale University — $27,216,035
- Dr. Joseph Brain, Harvard university — $15,641,225
- Dr. David Chock, Independent Consultant — $0
- Dr. Ana Diez-Roux, Drexel University — $33,575,181
- Dr. David A Grantz, University of California, Riverside — $0
- Dr. Jack Harkema, Michigan State University — $26,918,114
- Dr. Daniel Jacob, Harvard University — $14,135,578
- Dr. Steven Kleeberger, National Institutes of Health — $22,456,958
- Dr. Frederick J. Miller, Independent Consultant — $0
- Dr. Howard Neufeld, Appalachain State University — $0
- Dr. Armistead (Ted) Russell, Georgia Institute of Technology — $22,310,139
- Dr. Helen Suh, Northeastern University — $16,680,251
- Dr. James Ultman, Pennsylvania State University — $18,750,000
- Dr. Sverre Vedal, University of Washington — $8,000,000
- Dr. Kathleen Weathers, Cary Institute — $0
- Dr. Peter Woodbury, Cornell University — $308,120
- Dr. Ron Wyzga, Electric Power Research Institute — $0
So of the 20 CASAC Ozone Panel members, 14 (70%) received grant money from the EPA.
The total amount of unique grants involved (some panel members shared grants) is $192,342,943, an average of $13,738,781.64 per grantee.
The EPA’s CASAC panels work on a consensus basis. So with 70% of panel members on the receiving end of $192 million in grants, a “consensus” supporting the EPA was not difficult to achieve.
We have sued EPA over the composition of agency’s current CASAC panel for particulate matter.
And no, ozone doesn’t trigger asthma; it triggers lying.
Read Daily Caller coverage of this report.
UPDATE:
Though listed as an “independent consultant” by EPA, Frederick J. Miller is a former EPA staffer.
Though not listed as a “principal investigator” on any EPA grants, Kathleen Weathers’ employer, the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies,” has received $3,570,926 worth of grants from EPA.
Though not listed as a recent “principal investigator” on any EPA grants, Howard Neufeld was a “principal investigator” on an ozone-related grant from the EPA as follows:
So 17 of the 20 CASAC Ozone Panel members have current/former, direct/indirect EPA financial ties.
Many years ago con artists began using “science” to peddle their fake cures. The old “magic cure” peddler selling his “snake oil.” Now we have advanced to more elaborate fake cures and much more expensive and they are still using “science” to peddle their scams.
Part of the problem is that the analysis data sets used by EPA funded researchers are not public. The EPA does not ask for the data sets as that would open up FOI. Researchers offer various reasons not to make the data public. The end result is very expensive public health claims are not subject to normal scientific oversight.
I’m in the wrong business.
Amazing how Willie Soon’s funding, minuscule in comparison raised so many hackles!!!
Will Rogers once remarked “Americans have the best politicians money can buy”. We can now extend that to include scientists.
Just a simple example of ‘He who pays the piper calls the tune.’ ??
It seems incredibly naive to appoint ‘independent’ advisors who appear to be on the payroll of the authority.
Surely the EPA could have appointed CASAC members who were guaranteed to give the required answers without APPEARING to be biased .
The amount of money going to individual researchers is staggering. With tens of millions of dollars at stake, can anyone remain objective?
I wonder if those who were not on the EPA payroll played along with those who were? Or were they compensated in other ways not directly traceable to the EPA but still from the Obama Administration, and therefore just as conflicted as those who were directly compensated?
To be sure, some minimal compensation would be appropriate for reviewing EPA rules. But the amounts documented here are far from minimal. Were they direct compensation for playing along or were they compensation for other unrelated projects? Will we ever find out? Does it even matter? If these scientists were kept on the payroll, precisely because they supported EPA programs without asking hard questions, they are clearly not the “independent experts” required by law.
The only reasonable conclusion from this information is that we are dealing with corruption.
Manual-the-Broken-Record:
You are irrelevant, boring and repetitive in only the way that the unhinged can be. Do you think about anything else in your twilight years? Let us all know how your meeting goes — we all want to know how the world explosively began (thanks to your 1945 super-hero Kurodo).