Economic Protection Agency [1]
Submitted by Diane Farsetta [2] on
"EPA decisions now have a consistent pattern: disregard for inconvenient facts, a tilt toward industry, and a penchant for secrecy," said longtime Environmental Protection Agency [3] official Eric Schaeffer, who quit the agency in protest in 2002. He was responding to a new decision to exempt wood products plants from controls on emissions of formaldehyde, a chemical linked to cancer and leukemia. In making the decision, the EPA "relied on a risk assessment generated by a chemical industry-funded think tank [4], and a novel legal approach recommended by a timber industry lawyer. The regulation was ushered through the agency by senior officials with previous ties to the timber and chemical industries," reports the Los Angeles Times.