EPA and the chemical industry: Paying the fox to guard the henhouse

CHEMICAL INDUSTRY IS NOW EPA’S MAIN RESEARCH PARTNER

Research Joint Ventures Focus on Corporate Needs Rather Than Public Health

Washington, DC — Under the Bush administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is increasingly relying on corporate joint ventures in its research program, according to agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). This trend, says agency scientists, means that EPA is diverting funds from basic public health and environmental research toward applied research to address regulatory concerns of corporate funders.

Records obtained by PEER under the Freedom of Information Act show a marked increase in “cooperative research and development agreements” (or CRADAs) with individual corporations or industry associations since the advent of the Bush Administration. During the first Bush term EPA entered into 57 corporate CRADAs, compared with 34 such agreements in during Clinton’s second term. The American Chemical Council (ACC) is now EPA’s leading research partner.

A classic example of recent EPA/corporate joint ventures is the 2004 agreement reached with the ACC to fund the now-canceled CHEERS experiment in which parents would have received payments and gifts in return for spraying pesticides and other chemicals in the rooms primarily occupied by their infant children.

(More here. Thanks to Minnesota Central for the heads up.)