Nature, one of the most respected journals of Science, has an editorial on the U.S. EPA. It begins,

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is fast losing the few shreds of credibility it has left. The Bush administration has always shown more zeal in protecting business interests than the environment. But the agency’s current administrator, Stephen Johnson, a veteran EPA toxicologist who was promoted to the top slot in 2005, has done so with reckless disregard for law, science or the agency’s own rules — or, it seems, the anguished protests of his own subordinates.

Citing a new incident, not well-covered in the traditional media (there was an Associated Press story, but it was apparently not deemed newsworthy by most editors), it goes on to say:

The second example came on 29 February, in the form of a joint letter to Johnson from the four labour unions representing most of the EPA’s professional staff. Listing examples of alleged bad faith by Johnson, the unions essentially refused to work with him until he cleans up his act. Among the complaints was an assertion that he repeatedly ignored the EPA’s official Principles of Scientific Integrity, citing “fluoride drinking water standards, organophosphate pesticide registration, control of mercury emissions from power plants” — and the waiver refusal.

Give the Nature EPA editorial and the AP story a read.

– Earl K.


Link to original post