CHEMICALS: House Dems Question Industry Group Over EPA Advisory Panel Firing

Environment and Energy Daily, Russell J. Dinnage
Published April 2, 2008

The following is an excerpt - the complete article is available from Environment and Energy Daily. ------------------------------------------------ The House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday expanded its investigation into alleged chemical industry involvement in the science behind government regulatory decisions, asking the American Chemistry Council why it recommended the removal of a scientist from a U.S. EPA advisory panel last year. In a letter to ACC, committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) asked ACC to explain exactly why it protested EPA's employment of Maine Department of Health and Human Services scientist Deborah Rice on one of its advisory panels. The Energy and Commerce Committee is investigating Rice's removal from the panel "at the request of" ACC. "We wish to know how the ACC determined that Dr. Rice had such a conflict of interest and why this conflict of interest would warrant removal from the EPA panel," Dingell and Stupak wrote. According to an Environmental Working Group report released in February, Rice was fired by EPA in May 2007 from a leadership post on an advisory panel reviewing the potential human health risks related to exposure to a widely used flame retardant chemical called deca-BDE after ACC wrote the agency a letter stating that she had a conflict of interest against the substance (Greenwire, Feb. 29).