White House, Pentagon, Industry Secretly Colluded To Skew Perchlorate Report

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White House, Pentagon, Industry Secretly Colluded To Skew

Perchlorate Report

 

 

 

 

White House, Pentagon, Industry Secretly Colluded To Skew National

Academy Of Sciences Perchlorate Report, Documents Show

 

http://www.enn.com/aff.html?id=314

 

 

 

January 10, 2005 — By Natural Resources Defense Council

 

Chemical Attacks Thyroid, Poses Significant Threat to Infants

 

WASHINGTON (January 10, 2005) — The White House, the Defense

Department, and defense contractors collaborated in a backroom

campaign to manipulate a federal report on health threats posed by

perchlorate, a toxic rocket fuel ingredient, according to documents

recently obtained by NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). The

chemical, which has been found in water and food supplies nationally,

attacks the thyroid gland, and is especially harmful to fetuses and

infants. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is officially

releasing the report tomorrow. (Click here for an overview of the

campaign and to see key documents.)

 

" The Defense Department's job is to protect Americans, not threaten

our health, but these documents show that it is conspiring with its

contractors and the White House to twist the science and avoid

cleaning up a chemical that threatens our children's health, " said

Erik D. Olson, a senior attorney with NRDC, which obtained the

documents through Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. " We've never

seen such a brazen campaign to pressure the National Academy of

Sciences to downplay the hazards of a chemical, but it fits the

pattern of this administration manipulating science at the expense of

public health. " (Over the last year more than 6,000 U.S. scientists,

including 48 Nobel laureates, 62 National Medal of Science recipients,

and several science advisers to past Republican presidents, signed a

letter accusing the Bush administration of distorting and censoring

science for political purposes (for more information, go to the Union

of Concerned Scientists' Web site).

 

For decades, the Defense Department and its contractors have used

millions of pounds of perchlorate, often carelessly, contaminating

water and food supplies across the country. It has been detected in

drinking water supplies used by more than 20 million Americans, and

has recently been found in milk and lettuce and other crops that the

Food and Drug Administration and others have tested. Lawsuits have

been filed in California against Pentagon contractors that

contaminated drinking water supplies with perchlorate, triggering a

protracted battle over how much they will have to clean up and whether

low-level perchlorate exposure is associated with disease. Perchlorate

hampers the thyroid gland's normal functioning, which can disrupt

normal brain development in fetuses and infants.

 

The Defense Department has been blocking government efforts to address

perchlorate pollution for more than a decade, but in the last few

years it has intensified its campaign in the face of new revelations

about its toxicity. In January 2002, the Environmental Protection

Agency issued for peer review its third public draft assessment of

perchlorate's toxicity since 1992, recommending that 1 part per

billion (ppb) was the safe level in drinking water. In response, the

Pentagon and its contractors lobbied to stop the assessment process

and, with the help of the White House, ultimately wrested the

assessment from EPA and handed it to NAS in 2003, a move that many

observers viewed as a stalling tactic. The Pentagon has maintained

that any perchlorate level below 200 ppb in drinking water is safe.

 

NRDC sued the White House, Defense Department and EPA in March 2004

after they ignored more than a dozen Freedom of Information Act

requests, refusing to disclose any records documenting their campaign

to influence NAS or details of the perchlorate problem. In response to

the suit, the government recently provided some 30 boxes of documents

to NRDC, but is still withholding thousands of other government

records, including virtually all the key papers documenting White

House and Pentagon efforts to influence NAS. However, the government

was required by court order to include a " Vaughn Index " describing

each of the withheld documents, which reveals an extraordinary level

of White House and Pentagon effort to influence NAS. This

behind-the-scenes campaign included uncommon, extensive involvement by

White House and Pentagon officials to limit the scope of NAS' inquiry

and select the panelists, as well as collaboration among the White

House, Pentagon and DOD contractors to influence the panel.

 

" Scientists at the EPA, in state agencies, and in academia have all

concluded that very low levels of perchlorate threaten the health of

babies, " said Dr. Jennifer Sass, an NRDC senior scientist. " Scientists

should not be strong-armed by unqualified, partisan bureaucrats and

corporate polluters to skew the evidence. We hope that the National

Academy of Sciences was able to withstand the pressure and will be

able to issue a scientifically credible report. " Environment

California, a Los Angeles-based organization, today is releasing a

summary of the potential harmful effects of perchlorate on children,

and a refutation of the Pentagon and defense contractors' assertions

about the chemical. For the report,

 

Regardless of the NAS report's conclusion, NRDC will continue to fight

in court to force the government to release the withheld documents.

The organization is being represented by Olson, Aaron Colangelo and

other in-house attorneys, and by the Institute for Public

Representation at Georgetown University Law Center.

 

The Natural Resources Defense Council is a national, nonprofit

organization of scientists, lawyers and environmental specialists

dedicated to protecting public health and the environment. Founded in

1970, NRDC has more than 1 million members and e-activists nationwide,

served from offices in New York, Washington, Santa Monica and San

Francisco.

 

NRDC Press Backgrounder White House and Pentagon Bias National Academy

Perchlorate Report

 

Press contact: Erik Olson, Dr. Jennifer Sass or Elliott Negin,

202-289-2405 Natural Resources Defense Council, http://www.nrdc.org/