The War on Science Continues...

The War on Science Continues...: "

The administration is up to its usual tricks on the science front, this time with health standards on soot and dust. Why worry about "thousands of more deaths" when mining and agricultural trade associations are opposed to the new rules?:
EPA Panel Advises Agency Chief to Think Again, by Janet Wilson, LA Times: In an unprecedented action, the Environmental Protection Agency's own scientific panel ... challenged the agency's proposed public health standards governing soot and dust. The Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, mandated by Congress to review such proposals, asserted Friday that the standards put forward by EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson ignored most of the committee's earlier recommendations and could lead to additional heart attacks, lung cancer and respiratory ailments. ...
In December, Johnson proposed to slightly tighten the health standards that state and local governments must meet in regulating industries and other sources of pollution. But those standards, governing the smallest and most hazardous particles of soot, were substantially weaker than the scientists' recommendations. Johnson also proposed to exempt rural areas and mining and agriculture industries from standards governing larger coarse particles, and he declined to adopt the panel's proposed haze reduction standards. ...
Some panel members called the administrator's actions "egregious" and said his proposals "twisted" or "misrepresented" their recommendations. ... It was the first time since the committee was established under the Clean Air Act nearly 30 years ago that the committee had asked the EPA to change course ... "We're in uncharted waters here," acknowledged committee Chairwoman Rogene Henderson, an inhalation toxicologist. She said their action was necessary because "the response of the administrator is unprecedented in that he did not take our advice. It's most unusual for him not to take the advice of his own science advisory body." ...
Cal/EPA's air pollution epidemiology chief, Bart Ostro, charged during the teleconference that the EPA had incorporated "last-minute opinions and edits" by the White House Office of Management and Budget that "circumvented the entire peer review process." ... In an interview later, Ostro said he was referring to marked-up drafts of Johnson's proposals that showed changes by the White House budget office and language that was "very close to some of the letters written by some of the trade associations."
He said the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee's seven-year review of data on health risks of particulate matter had been replaced with inaccurate conclusions about the science that could lead to "thousands more deaths," especially from fine particulates that lodge deep in the lungs. ... Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) wrote to Johnson on Friday afternoon requesting that the EPA provide her with documents related to the EPA's ... contacts with ... representatives of the mining and agricultural industries. "These changes benefit mining and agricultural interests at the expense of public health," she wrote. ..."