Fostering Scientific Integrity

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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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OMB Proposed Bulletin on Risk Assessment

Download OIRA's Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin (Jan. 9, 2006).Download OIRA's Proposed Risk Assessment Bulletin (Jan. 9, 2006).

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Comments on OMB's Proposed Bulletin on "Good Guidance Practices"

Download comments filed by Citizens for Sensible Safeguards

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White House 'Good Guidance' Proposal Threatens Agencies, Vital Public Information

Washington--January 9, 2005--A recent White House proposal threatens federal agency efforts to provide important information to the public and stakeholders, by opening guidance documents to politicization and industry influence, a coalition of public interest groups told the White House today.

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An Unacceptable Power Grab

The Proposed Bulletin represents an unacceptable power grab by the White House. The principles and traditions of the American political order abhor the excessive centralization of authority that OMB would win with the Proposed Bulletin, which contravenes Congress’s role in delegating responsibility and discretion to the agencies and assumes the right to amend the Administrative Procedure Act by executive fiat.

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Making the Government Less Effective

OMB claims that it seeks to make agency guidance practices “more transparent, consistent, and accountable,” but the Proposed Bulletin fails to serve those goals and is, instead, a roadmap for government that is less responsive to the public’s needs.

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A Solution in Search of a Problem

OMB claims that agencies are using general policy statements, handbooks, manuals, compliance guides, nonlegislative rules, and other informal matter as a vehicle for policy edicts that should go through the APA’s notice-and-comment rulemaking process. Instead of addressing what could be the underlying causes of resorting to subterfuge rulemaking, OMB throws the baby out with the bathwater by adding new burdens to the production of information that the public needs.

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Industry Derails Labor Safety Rule with Data Quality Challenge

A coalition of mining companies and trade associations appears to have used the Data Quality Act to derail a Mine Safety Health Administration (MSHA) rule that would protect miners from harmful particulate matter in diesel exhaust. The challenge did not raise actual objections to data quality; instead it couched industry's disagreements with the rule in data quality language. The tactic, however, appears to have succeeded in impelling the agency to publish a modification to the rule that weakens the mine worker protections. The Issue

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Right-Wing Groups Challenge Link Between Carcinogens, Cancer

Two right-wing, industry-backed groups filed a data quality petition with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) challenging the agency's labeling of certain chemicals as "likely human carcinogens." Specifically, the Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) and the American Council on Health and Science (ACHS) want EPA to eliminate statements in its Guidelines for Carcinogen Risk Assessment that indicate that a substance may properly be labeled as "likely to be carcinogenic to humans" based solely or primarily on the results of animal studies. Background

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Industry Misuses Data Quality Act to Challenge EPA Choices

Two industry groups recently filed challenges, under the Data Quality Act, against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) methodological choices. Both challenges focus on evaluations of human health risks from specific chemicals. The petitions specifically question documents that address emissions of Metam Sodium, a pesticide, and Dioxin/Furan, used to produce cement. The petitions challenge EPA procedures, however, which are policy decisions made within the agency -- and not data -- and as such lie outside the scope of the Data Quality Act (DQA).

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Stakeholders Weigh In At First-Ever Congressional Hearings on Data Quality Act

The Government Reform Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs held the first congressional hearing on the Information Quality Act, also known as the Data Quality Act (DQA) on July 20. The hearing reviewed implementation of the DQA at three federal agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS), and the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS). The subcommittee also heard from interested stakeholders, including industry associations that have filed data quality challenges and public interest groups seeking the policy's repeal.

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Resources & Research

Living in the Shadow of Danger: Poverty, Race, and Unequal Chemical Facility Hazards

People of color and people living in poverty, especially poor children of color, are significantly more likely...

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A Tale of Two Retirements: One for CEOs and One for the Rest of Us

The 100 largest CEO retirement funds are worth a combined $4.9 billion, equal to the entire retirement account savings of 41 percent of American fam...

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Blowing Smoke: Chemical Companies Say “Trust Us,” But Environmental and Workplace Safety Violations Belie Their Rhetoric

Large chemical companies a...

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Gasping for Support: Implementation of Tougher Air Quality Standards Will Require New Funds for State Agencies

New scientific research shows that the current levels of...

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