Coming Clean at EPAThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has given the word "limited" a brand new meaning. To the EPA, that word apparently allows for routine suppression of new information about chemicals - even information about compounds that are known to cause cancer and respiratory problems. Under the EPA's own guidelines, the agency can allow confidentiality on its registry of dangerous chemicals only "under very limited circumstances." Yet Journal Sentinel reporters Susanne Rust and Meg Kissinger, who examined more than 2,000 registry filings from the last three years, found that the EPA frequently "sanitized" records. The agency agreed to keep the name of a chemical a secret in more than half of the cases they examined. In hundreds of other cases, the company filing the report was allowed to blot out its own name and address. In this way, the registry, which was begun 30 years ago to help the public avoid contact with dangerous chemicals, has been neutered. The law requires companies to submit information about potential hazards to the EPA, and then the agency has to make that information public.
And even though the EPA claims it works to fill in the gaps with companies that have withheld information, this seems to happen only rarely. The reporters found that more than half of the 32 submissions to the EPA in March 2004, for example, still were missing key details that would help the public connect the dots. In some cases, no information was provided. Rust and Kissinger cite "File No. 8EHQ-0308-17103A." The name of the chemical, the name of the company that makes it, even the class of the chemical all were redacted. Perhaps what EPA officials really need is a dictionary. In it, they could rediscover the meaning of the word "limited." Moreover, they could look up the meaning of the word "protection." REPRINTED FROM THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL. DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICAE, INC.
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