EPA IS FLYING BLIND, MULTIPLE STUDIES CONCLUDE —

[rodeodance]

The USA as we know it is slowly crumbling--as more and more $$ goes to the ME wars.




http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=734

For Immediate Release: August 24, 2006
Contact: Carol Goldberg [phone]

EPA IS FLYING BLIND, MULTIPLE STUDIES CONCLUDE — Breakdowns in Information Quality and Scientific Integrity Hamstring Agency

Washington, DC — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is unable to reliably assess the state of the environment or gauge its own effectiveness, according to a compilation of outside reviews by the agency’s Inspector General released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Unfortunately, these weak spots will likely suffer further from pending Bush administration budget cuts.

Dated August 16, 2006, the report by the EPA Office of Inspector General was done at the request of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works with an eye toward possible reorganization of the agency. The report assembles all recent reviews of agency organization and effectiveness conducted by entities such as the National Academy of Public Administration, the Government Accountability Office, as well as other private and public assessments.

The overwhelming consensus of these reviews was that inadequate information and fragmented scientific work precluded meaningful evaluation of both EPA’s present structure as well as possible reorganizations. Troubling findings cited by the Inspector General include –

* “EPA does not have the data to support its positions on the state of the environment or to measure the success of its programs”;
* “EPA’s information systems have incomplete and untimely data”; and
* EPA lacks a “clear identification and prioritization of the most important scientific questions to be addressed.”.............

[HereSince1628]

1. Many R's have hated the EPA since before Reagan

They saw it as a highwater mark on liberalism whose flood must be stopped. When the R's say they are fighting burdensome regulation that stiffles American industry they usually mean the EPA.

[StClone]

2. Fifty percent of our Budget

To protect corporate assets overseas, and against self-made enemies and imaginary devils. And they got a problem with the EPA protecting them from the real dangers of toxic pesticides, polluted drinking water and unbreathable air?