National Academy of Sciences reject OMB proposal to put economists in charge of science rulemaking

[Guest guest]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/11/AR2007011101676_\

pf.html

( Actual Report URL:http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11811.html )

Scientists Reject Chemical Rules

White House Plan to Change Risk Assessment Called 'Flawed'

By Rick Weiss

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, January 12, 2007; A17

When the Bush administration last year proposed a controversial

revamping of the rules by which federal agencies decide whether

chemicals and other products pose risks to human health, it offered to

run the plan by the prestigious National Research Council.

Yesterday the White House got its response: a 324-page report that

says, in no uncertain terms, " Throw it out and start all over. "

The proposal by the Office of Management and Budget is " fundamentally

flawed " and should be withdrawn, the report concludes.

Echoing concerns raised by scientists, consumer groups and agency

heads, the council -- part of the congressionally chartered National

Academies -- told the OMB to limit itself to outlining guiding

principles and leave details to experts in the nation's scientific

agencies.

F. Ahearne, director of the ethics program at Sigma Xi, an

international scientific honor society, who chaired the review

committee, said that in his decades of experience working on such

reviews for the National Academies, he could not recall any other

instance when the conclusion was to reject a government proposal

completely.

" We had expected that we would review the bulletin in detail, then

recommend some modifications and improvements, " he said. Instead, the

18-member group of experts voted unanimously to recommend that it be

killed.

The short but sweeping " draft bulletin " was released last January by

the OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), which

has enormous control over the extent to which regulated industries

must spend money ensuring that their intended actions will not harm

the public or the environment.

The research council said it supports the idea of revising current

rules. But under the proposed provisions, it concluded, risk

assessments would be " more susceptible to being manipulated to achieve

a predetermined result. "

Among its problems, Ahearne said, the report too narrowly defines an

" adverse health effect " as " a fundamental impairment or lesion " --

ignoring the public health goal of preventing, not just responding to,

injury and sickness. He said it offers few protections for " sensitive

populations " such as children or pregnant women, which usually are key

to determining acceptable risk levels.

Consumer activists cheered the report. " The scientific community has

rejected this extreme effort to put economists instead of scientists

in charge of public health, " said Rena Steinzor, a director of the

Center for Progressive Reform, an academic think tank that focuses on

regulatory issues.

Acting OIRA Administrator D. Aitken, whose predecessor crafted

the proposal, said that under the circumstances, the OMB will not

finalize the proposed bulletin.