Saving Environmental Health Leadership in California

We have a whodunit on our hands here in California. Unfortunately it's a serious case, because the health effects will be far-reaching, and the ripples will hurt both people and science.

Under the cloak of the California budget crisis, a proposal has emerged from the Governor's office to completely eliminate California's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA). OEHHA is the small office inside Cal/EPA where all the health scientists work. It's a strange target if the goal is to save money. The total amount of taxpayer money funding OEHHA is only slightly north of $8 million, and the proposed elimination and moving of statutory functions would probably cost almost that much. This is 'budget dust', not a real belt-tightening measure. So we need to look elsewhere for the real motive.

In fact, there are a lot of suspects in this case.

• The Styrene Industry has a motive because OEHHA is poised to list this ubiquitous Styrofoam and plastic chemical as a known human carcinogen (the link above goes to a pdf action alert from the manufacturers trying to stop this!)
• PG&E has a motive because OEHHA has been trying to finalize a safe drinking water level for chromium (remember Erin Brockovich?) way ahead of the U.S. government; this cleaner drinking water proposal has been held up in the Governor's office - a coincidence??
• Big tobacco has a motive because OEHHA was the first agency in the world to declare second-hand smoke to be a breast carcinogen, and we know from history that Big Tobacco holds grudges.
• Dow Chemical has a motive because OEHHA is poised to make a decision that may list its chemical, bisphenol A (BPA) as "known to cause birth defects or reproductive harm", a designation that no other agency has yet made. BPA is notorious because of its hormone-disrupting effects and presence in baby bottles and food cans, which may need to be labeled in California if this chemical is designated as causing reproductive harm.
• Even other boards and departments in Cal/EPA might have a motive, since OEHHA reviews their risk assessments and calls them on it when the decisions are motivated by politics, not by science and health protection.

You get the idea. This is a feisty little office of scientists who are actually trying to do their job, which is to scientifically assess health and environmental risks in our air, water, food, soil, and consumer products, and to protect public health.

Funny how it is with these David vs. Goliath fights. Sometimes the little guy does win, but sometimes he gets stepped on. But if our David gets stepped on we all lose. That's because OEHHA's scientists have international reputations and guide state, federal, and global decisions on toxic chemicals in the environment. Where California goes, others follow, but if the leader disappears, we will have the blind leading the blind.

Fortunately the fight's not over. The California legislature has an opportunity to fix the problem by preserving OEHHA as an independent entity inside Cal/EPA, and strengthen it by consolidating other risk assessment functions there. Streamlining should happen at Cal/EPA, perhaps in pesticide registration where functions can be trimmed and merged to be more efficient. Also, this is the perfect place to use fees, since taxpayers shouldn't be paying for all of this work, polluters should.

The legislature will be accepting testimony on this on May 28th.  With the monster budget sandstorm swirling through Sacramento, and the prospect that California will not be able to pay its bills come July, the air probably won't clear in time to help us solve the mystery in this case.  But regardless of whodunit, we must do everything we can now to ensure that when a budget deal is struck, the little bunch of heroic, dedicated Davids in OEHHA are left standing to continue protecting all of us, and our environment from toxic chemicals

This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard blog.

Comments

[mpwilson]

Comment of Michael P. Wilson, PhD, MPH
University of California, Berkeley
Center for Occupational and Environmental Health

From the Feb 24 joint Assembly hearing of the ESTM and Health Committees (on AB 1879 and SB 509, which many of you attended) it was clear from statements made by Mr. Chesbro and Mr. Jones and members of the Committees that effective implementation of California's Green Chemistry Initiative is a priority issue for their Committees, and that they would be monitoring progress and expecting quarterly updates from the DTSC Director.

I am not sure, however, that the Committee members fully recognized the critical role OEHAA plays in the implementation process. Identifying and prioritizing chemicals of concern, determining appropriate health endpoint metrics, evaluating existing data sets and so forth are at the heart of these new laws and fall squarely into the jurisdiction of OEHAA. OEHHA scientists can only do this as an organizational entity. I think it's pretty clear they would not be able to this if they are disbanded and dispersed throughout the Agency.

Clearly, the strength of the science behind the Green Chemistry Initiative will determine its success, which will have implications well into California's future. It would be a major set-back for California if the Initiative is side-tracked and weakened by losing the scientific contributions of OEHHA.

Michael P. Wilson

[Richard Denison]

As someone intimately involved in chemical assessment and policy both in California and nationally, I find the budget proposal to eliminate or atomize OEHHA to be both deeply disturbing and ironic.
Disturbing, because it would dissolve a world-class group of scientists who for decades have delivered scientifcally sound, objective assessments of chemical risks. Losing that top-notch expertise would deprive not just the State, but the globe, of a vital resource.
Ironic, because California is poised to lead the nation in advancing a greener and more sustainable chemicals economy through the Governor's signature Green Chemistry Initiative. Losing OEHHA would rip the heart out of that effort, at the very moment the State most needs an objective source of sound information and expertise to guide critical decisions about chemicals.
Governor Schwarzenegger has expressed understandable reluctance to have the Legislature make risk decisions about chemicals, arguing that a systematic approach driven by agency expertise is needed -- hence the Green Chemistry Initiative. While DTSC (lead agency for the Initiative) and other agencies within CalEPA bring much to the table, OEHHA houses the core competency needed to objectively and consistently assess chemicals of concern and potential alternatives.
While California clearly faces major budgetary challenges, the huge return on investment that OEHHA (a tiny agency by any standard) provides to the people of California -- by anticipating and reducing the health and environmental impacts of chemicals and their enormous associated costs -- more than justifies retaining OEHHA intact within Cal EPA.
Richard Denison, Environmental Defense

[Carol Lee A]

The situation with Cal/EPA's OEHHA scientists smacks of Bush-like politics. This isnt about the money. The savings are negligible, if there are any savings at all. This is all about silencing scientists who dare to speak truth to power. It is unclear precisely which of the many interests convinced the Governor's people to dice and serve up this little group of hard working scientists. Similarly when the main extramural research program at Federal EPA continued to publish findings that showed that existing levels of air pollutants were making people ill and even causing some deaths, the Bush people zeroed out their budget.

[GSolomon]

I want to thank Mr. Snyder for his comment and am relieved that SIRC was not involved in the effort to dissolve OEHHA. Of course, that still leaves us with lots of suspects. I'm looking forward to seeing their alibis posted on this site in the very near future. Then we'll have to bring in Sherlock Holmes to crack the case.
As a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Toxicology Program (NTP), I'm aware of the heat generated by styrene. The NTP is considering including styrene in its upcoming Report on Carcinogens, and SIRC has been quite involved in opposing this move. The SIRC comments considered by the Board are here: http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/files/Snyder_SIRCJuly7.pdf.
OEHHA is poised to move forward to list styrene under California's Proposition 65 as "known to the State to cause cancer". It surprises me that SIRC claims not to know. One might expect that they would have their ear to the ground on this issue.
But my concern isn't with styrene, but rather that an independent scientific agency is targeted for elimination under the guise of budget cuts. This agency has been attacked both overtly and covertly for years by various industry sectors. Maybe it doesn't matter who struck the blow. It's just time for the rest of us to stand up and defend scientific independence.
PS. I apologize for using the term "Styrofoam". The correct term is "polystyrene". Please make a note of it.

[SIRC]

Dr. Solomon’s post is inaccurate concerning the styrene industry in every regard – at least based on my knowledge as Executive Director of the Styrene Information and Research Center (SIRC), a styrene industry-sponsored organization dedicated to promoting state-of-the-art research on styrene.

First, SIRC has a nearly 20-year history of sharing scientific data on styrene with the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), including many constructive meetings with OEHHA representatives. In May 2008, SIRC and OEHHA actually co-organized a major scientific symposium on potential causes of cancer. Further, we at SIRC were, in fact, completely unaware of any proposed budget action related to OEHHA.

Second, OEHHA is not preparing to list styrene as a “known human carcinogen­.” The action referenced by Dr. Solomon prompts OEHHA to adopt carcinogen listings from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) for Proposition 65. In styrene’s case, IARC considers styrene a “possible” cause of cancer, and has never listed it as a “known" human carcinogen; any suggestion to the contrary is a fundamental misunderstanding of the IARC listing scheme.

Lastly, the article perpetuates misinformation about polystyrene products. Styrene-based materials are “ubiquitous” simply because they are widely preferred for health care, food service, and other applications due to their safety, unique performance benefits and economy. For the record, “Styrofoam” is a registered trademark for building insulation, and no other products.

Jack Snyder
Styrene Information & Research Center
styrene.orge.org
[phone]