WP, 2nd in pg-1series: "Data Quality" Law Regulation Nemesis (important!)

[DeepModem Mom]

THE FINE PRINT | A Policy Puts Science on Trial
'Data Quality' Law Is Nemesis Of Regulation

By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 16, 2004; Page A01

Second of three articles

Things were not looking good a few years ago for the makers of atrazine, America's second-leading weedkiller. The company was seeking approval from the Environmental Protection Agency to keep the highly profitable product on the market. But scientists were finding it was disrupting hormones in wildlife -- in some cases turning frogs into bizarre creatures bearing both male and female sex organs.

Last October, concerns about the herbicide led the European Union to ban atrazine, starting in 2005. Yet that same month, after 10 years of contentious scientific review, the EPA decided to permit ongoing use in the United States with no new restrictions....(There)is no one reason that atrazine passed regulatory muster in this country. But close observers give significant credit to a single sentence that was added to the EPA's final scientific assessment last year.

Hormone disruption, it read, cannot be considered a "legitimate regulatory endpoint at this time" -- that is, it is not an acceptable reason to restrict a chemical's use -- because the government had not settled on an officially accepted test for measuring such disruption.

Those words, which effectively rendered moot hundreds of pages of scientific evidence, were adopted by the EPA as a result of a petition filed by a Washington consultant working with atrazine's primary manufacturer, Syngenta Crop Protection. The petition was filed under the Data Quality Act, a little-known piece of legislation that, under President Bush's Office of Management and Budget, has become a potent tool for companies seeking to beat back regulation....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3733-2004Aug15.html

[leftchick]

1. I read an article all about this in Discovery magazine last month...

It was fascinating about the Biologist at Berkeley who made the hormonal findings and infuriating to see his work wasted. The irony here is Syngenta is based in Switzerland where their chemical Atrazine is banned! This is very distressing and depressing to see day after day how this misadministration is killing us and our children for PROFITS!

Vote The Killers Out!!! :grr:

[gatlingforme]

10. Well said I agree wholeheartedly. Bush and Co. are greedy little

pieces of #@*! that can't wait to get in a second time to kill off the rest of the planet

[acmavm]

2. There has got to be a way to stop this guy and his buddies from killing

us all off. Certainly, somewhere there is an honest politician or lawyer who can say "hey, when it come to the point that you fudge on federal regulations that are meant to protect the health of the American citizens, especially when your reason is as crass and corrupt as greed, it's time for something to be done."

Somehow I am of the opinion that it was never meant that our own government should be allowed to pass ugly regulations and laws that are meant to sacrifice the health of millions of people because of money. Where is the compassion, decency, and Christianity in that action.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Positive feedback for this series: [e-mail] (reader rep)

or even letters to the editor.

[Tight_rope]

4. That's just like a Repuke...kill everything anything for a profit!

[Kierkegaard]

5. This is insane.

I'd love to see all the sneaky, low-key stuff like this find it's way into the debates. If all those indefensibly anti-American actions were to reach the citizenry en masse, Bush would get lynched.

[DeepModem Mom]

7. In my message today to CNN, I used this as an example...

of what does not get covered.

[xchrom]

6. ain't modern life

wonderful!:eyes:

[Rose Siding]

8. Don't miss article One of Three in this series

Bush Forces a Shift In Regulatory Thrust
OSHA Made More Business-Friendly

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1315-2004Aug14.html

Maybe the press is doing part of its job, here. Last week, in the NYT:

Out of Spotlight, Bush Overhauls U.S. Regulations

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/14/politics/14bush.html

And today, the dems let fly with:

Kerry-Edwards Campaign Statement on 'America For Sale'

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=669&ncid=669&e=9&u=/usnw/20040816/pl_usnw/kerry_edwards_campaign_statement_on__america_for_sale_114_xml

This is an excellent emerging theme. It will continue to energize outreach and GOTV activists. Clinton said, "When people think, Democrats win". But Stephenson, when told that all thinking people were with him, said "That's not good enough. I need a majority".

[DeepModem Mom]

9. Thanks for the links, party_line --

[leftchick]

11. kick

:kick:

[yellowcanine]

12. Kerry needs to hammer this in Missouri. Atrazine in groundwater is

an issue there.

[TahitiNut]

13. The 'logic' is stunningly malicious.

(1) It's proven that it poses a grave hazard to humans and the ecology by disrupting homones.
(2) There's no 'standard' to say just how much of a hazard warrants a total ban.
(3) Thus, they adopt a default position in favor of unhindered profiteering and unlimited ecological damage?

That's fucking nuts!