EPA science panel plows ahead with toxic chemical’s review, despite coronavirus crisis

Despite the disruptions of the COVID-19 crisis, the Environmental Protection Agency has moved forward with a four-day scientific peer review of the agency’s evaluation of an extremely toxic chemical. The peer review process is a required step before the agency makes any decisions about whether and how to regulate the common solvent linked to cancer, immune disorders and fetal heart defects.

Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting previously reported that the EPA’s risk evaluation of the chemical, trichloroethylene, or TCE, was heavily altered by the White House. The draft evaluation by EPA scientists, years in the making, had set unsafe exposure levels based on the risk to fetal hearts, because even trace amounts of TCE can cause potentially lethal abnormalities. After White House edits, the draft swapped in a higher benchmark, based on levels at which TCE can trigger immunosuppression.

The White House interference extended to major rewrites of the instructions for the group of scientists convening this week, according to a document obtained by Reveal.

For instance, a draft of the instructions prepared by EPA scientists said: “EPA concluded that the available literature overall supported a casual relationship between developmental exposure to TCE or its metabolites and cardiac defects.”

However, the rewritten instructions, formally called a charge to the review panel and intended to guide the committee’s work, struck the phrase “causal relationship,” noting instead that “TCE may produce cardiac effects in humans, … however cardiac defects after developmental exposure were not observed consistently.”

On Tuesday, the first day of the peer review meeting, the committee heard comments from the public, including Richard Denison, a senior scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund. Denison eviscerated the EPA for bowing to White House pressure.

“The EPA asserts without a shred of evidence that it expects that addressing risks from immune effects would address other identified risks,” Denison said. “EPA should be ashamed of itself.”