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EPA Gave Public Wrong Info on Toxic Substances for 4 Years

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Isn’t the Environmental Protection Agency supposed to be above reproach?

If I’m to understand correctly, it’s not just a bloiated hive of bureaucrats soaking up public salaries. To hear liberals tell it, it’s supposedly the first line of defense for Americans who rely on it for clean air and clean water, depending on the agency to report the facts with sterling accuracy.

Science!

Well, as it turns out, perhaps not so much.

A letter from the agency’s top watchdog indicates that it was reporting the wrong numbers on toxic substances for four years running, according to The Hill.

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“The EPA’s Office of Inspector General (IG) said the inconsistencies were ‘of sufficient concern to warrant immediate reporting,’” the report noted.

“The emergency letter from the EPA’s acting IG to the head of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention warned that certain information the EPA released publicly about its toxic chemical releases did not match internal EPA data.”

While the EPA’s letter is full of bureaucratic acronyms, a sense of urgency comes through:

“While conducting the Audit of the Impact of Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) Late Reporters on the EPA’s Annual TRI National Analysis (Project No. OA&E-FY18-0002), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Office of Inspector General (OIG) decided to issue an immediate management alert informing the agency of our discovery that its TRI data pertaining to releases of hazardous substances from Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW) are inaccurate,” the letter read.

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“As a result, the public is not receiving complete and timely information about environmental conditions affecting human health.”

This isn’t a minor thing. The reports in question deal with substances that have significant adverse effects on human health — including carcinogenic substances — as well as the environment.

The letter doesn’t contain any details about what actually was released or in what amounts, but it does hint at the potential size of the error.

“Data from the EPA’s public TRI data systems help support informed decision-making by companies, government agencies, nongovernmental organizations and the public. According to EPA staff, the data are also used for research purposes by other worldwide TRI data users, such as other governments, academics and those researching health impacts,” the letter states.

That means it could have affected untold millions of people.

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“We examined the EPA’s public TRI release data and the impact of the data on the agency’s annual TRI National Analysis,” the letter continued.

“During our review, the OIG identified discrepancies between (1) the total pounds of chemicals released to the environment as reported in the publicly available TRI data for reporting years 2013–2017 and (2) the information that the EPA provided to us separately on the total pounds of chemicals released.”

While the inspector general said that the audit was still proceeding, “we found this information to be of sufficient concern to warrant immediate reporting.”

And just to drive the point home about the efficacy of government, this involved chemical releases from publicly owned treatment facilities.

It’s also worth noting that the four years in question were 2013 to 2017 — the second Obama administration, in other words. For liberals complaining about the Trump administration’s plans to cut the agency, that should have been when the EPA was at its most efficient.

Of course, we know it wasn’t. The whole country watched as an EPA team turned an entire river in Colorado orange back in 2015 when it released mine waste into the Animas River.

“The magnitude of it, you can’t even describe it,” New Mexico’s then-Gov. Susana Martinez told CNN at the time.

But as the inspector general’s report shows, Colorado mine cleanup wasn’t the only thing the EPA was mucking up during the Obama years.

In response to the inspector general’s report, according to The Hill, the EPA says it was able to rectify the issue identified by the internal watchdog, saying it “developed and deployed corrections” to the issues that were identified within three business days.

“Additionally, EPA has determined that the glitches did not impact the recently released 2017 National Analysis,” an EPA spokesman said, according to The Hill.

At least one environmentalist group wasn’t convinced, however.

“The TRI is the most important tool guaranteeing Americans the right to know about toxic chemical pollution in their own backyards,” Environmental Working Group President Ken Cook said.

“EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler should take the inspector general’s warning seriously and move immediately to restore the integrity of the TRI.”

But wait, “restore the integrity”? Weren’t these the secular saints of the government, working diligently to ensure that this kind of thing doesn’t happen?

And wasn’t the Obama administration the pinnacle of looking out for Americans? Didn’t liberals claim to be horrified that the Trump administration planned to rein in the EPA’s ability to squelch vital parts of the American economy like the coal industry?

Imagine, for instance, if a private company reported the wrong numbers on the amount of toxic chemicals it was putting out. What do you think the likelihood would be that the EPA would go after the company’s executives with guns a-blazin’? Pretty high, no?

When the EPA does it, what happens? There’s a rebuke from an internal watchdog, a rare “management alert,” and … that’s probably it. Yet, it’s another example of how political appointees aren’t necessarily as effective at policing private industry as the left believes them to be.

When they don’t have an agenda, they’re frighteningly inefficient.

Alas, this story will end up dying on the vine. If only the EPA would meet the same fate.

CORRECTION, April 9, 2019: As originally published, this article referred to Susana Martinez as Colorado’s governor in 2015. She was governor of New Mexico.

We have corrected the article and apologize for any confusion we may have caused.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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