Fostering Scientific Integrity

Feb 8, 2016

Top 400 Taxpayers See Tax Rates Rise, But There’s More to the Story

As Americans were gathering party supplies to greet the New Year, the Internal Revenue Service released their annual report of cumulative tax data reported on the 400 tax r...

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Feb 4, 2016

Chlorine Bleach Plants Needlessly Endanger 63 Million Americans

Chlorine bleach plants across the U.S. put millions of Americans in danger of a chlorine gas release, a substance so toxic it has been used as a chemical weapon. Greenpeace’s new repo...

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Jan 25, 2016

U.S. Industrial Facilities Reported Fewer Toxic Releases in 2014

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data for 2014 is now available. The good news: total toxic releases by reporting facilities decreased by nearly six percent from 2013 levels. Howe...

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Jan 22, 2016

Methane Causes Climate Change. Here's How the President Plans to Cut Emissions by 40-45 Percent.

UPDATE (Jan. 22, 2016): Today, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) released its proposed rule to reduce methane emissions...

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The Chemical Industry’s Change of Heart

Aug 10, 2009 by Matthew Madia

The chemical industry is supporting new rules to limit consumer exposure to toxic substances. Richard Denison of Environmental Defense called it “a radical departure” for an industry that usually battles against new regulation, according to The Washington Post.

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Bipartisan Group Issues Report on Science in Policymaking

Aug 6, 2009 by Matthew Madia

The Bipartisan Policy Center yesterday released a report that recommends ways federal agencies can ensure the integrity of regulatory science and improve the quality of regulations, especially those regulations informed by science.

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NIH to Edit Wikipedia – A Slippery Slope?

Jul 28, 2009 by Roger Strother*

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has initiated a program to encourage its scientists to edit and create articles in the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a widely used free resource on the web often criticized for its lack of reliability that results from its open editing format.

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Studies Showing Dangers of Cellphone Use while Driving Were Suppressed

Jul 21, 2009 by Matthew Madia

The Bush administration shuttered a potentially groundbreaking research project designed to examine the effects of cellphone use on driver safety, and it suppressed information that could have shed more light on the problem, according to documents uncovered by Public Citizen and the Center for Auto Safety.

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California Seeks to Add New Chemicals to Prop. 65 List

California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) is proposing to add 30 chemicals linked to reproductive harm and cancer to the state's Proposition 65 list. Proposition 65, a statute passed by California voters in 1986, requires the state to list chemicals known to cause public health problems and bars some actions that could expose people to the substances.

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Defense Industry Questions Health Effects of Rocket Fuel Additive

Jun 25, 2009 by Matthew Madia

The military-industrial complex is once again lobbying the Environmental Protection Agency in hopes of staving off regulation of a harmful chemical found in rocket fuel.

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Under Bush, OIRA Interfered in Chemical Studies

Jun 11, 2009 by Matthew Madia

The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) questioned scientific conclusions and edited language in multiple studies assessing the health effects of chemical substances, according to a report released today by the House Science and Technology Committee subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight.

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OMB Watch Comments on Greenhouse Gas Reporting

Jun 10, 2009 by Brian Turnbaugh*

OMB Watch has submitted comments on the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) proposed mandatory greenhouse gas (GHG) registry. Our comments focused on ensuring that information about emissions is made available to the public in a comprehensive, timely, and useful manner. Without sufficient transparency, the GHG registry could end up sabotaging our nascent climate policies.

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Questions Unanswered on White House Role in EPA IRIS Process

Jun 3, 2009 by Matthew Madia

As I blogged a couple weeks ago, the Environmental Protection Agency is attempting to streamline its process for assessing the health effects of chemicals under its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS).

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EPA Regains Control of Toxic Chemical Studies

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is changing the way it studies the health effects of industrial chemicals in an attempt to quicken the pace at which new assessments are completed and to limit political interference in the scientific process.

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