EPA Must Base Its Decisions on Science

According to an article by Cheryl Hogue in the September 10 issue of Chemical and Engineering News, the National Research Council has studied the activities of the EPA and recently issued a report. There were several recommendations, among which is a need for better coordination among the field offices of the EPA and its home Office of Research and Development. As a promoter of efficiency, that certainly sounds reasonable to me.

Of greater significance, the report suggests that the EPA must change how it studies and then acts on persistent and emerging environmental challenges such as climate change and human exposure to an increasing number of chemicals in the environment. Cheryl's report does not indicate any specific recommendations were made. However, I wholeheartedly agree with the objective. I believe the EPA is doing a reasonable job with respect to hazardous chemicals in the environment, but it is sorely deficient in its approach to climate change.

On climate change, the EPA appears to have made no specific scientific study to justify or discredit the theory that deleterious climate change is being caused by increased emissions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Up to now, it appears that EPA has merely taken information from the emotional positions of climate change enthusiasts and has established and continues to establish regulations based on that unsupported theory.

We need some good scientific proof to show that carbon dioxide is an unusual greenhouse gas, in view of the fact that it's thermal resistivity is only slightly greater than that of other major components of the atmosphere and less than some of the other minor constituents.