Excerpt:
Saturday, October 14, 2006
More Fraud, Misconduct at EPA
A recent report issued by the EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG) found “hundreds of weaknesses—missing data, no log books, falsified measurements—not noted by EPA. The office had found many of the same problems in 1999, and they were identified again by EPA in 2002,” according to Kate Raiford of Raw Story. But EPA did nothing about them and now tries to downplay the issue.
“Fraud in even just one lab can have a significant impact on several thousands, millions of people,” said a spokesman for the EPA OIG. “We think this is an area vulnerable and susceptible to fraud.” The fraud involves both drinking water and wastewater laboratory testing. It includes manipulating equipment to make it look like the experimental protocol was followed or the correct result was produced. EPA OIG also found evidence of altered signatures on reports, no maintenance records on instruments, and numerous quality control failures.
EPA has a long history of scientific malpractice. Both the General Accounting Office and the Congressional Research Service have been severely critical of EPA's policies and procedures on a variety of issues. EPA has violated its own risk assessment guidelines and debased scientific standards regarding secondhand smoke. It was found guilty of violating six federal statutes for using harassment and intimidation to try to compel employee support for its policy on secondhand smoke. It has fraudulently misrepresented the findings of other scientists in order to make it appear they supported conclusions EPA favored. A dozen career employees of EPA wrote a letter to the Washington Times “risking our careers rather than choosing to remain silent” about “egregious misconduct” at EPA. Internal documents available under the Freedom of Information Act show that EPA exaggerated claims and promulgated unwarranted policies. EPA has gone against the advice of it own Science Advisory Board (see, for example, its history of action on particulates.) EPA fraudulently manufactured fake “scientific” studies in order to support its views on sulfur dioxide (see my book MAKERS AND TAKERS for fuller explanation of this.) EPA has funneled taxpayer money to lobby groups that support political action on policies—even unscientific ones—that EPA wants to promote.
http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/basicinformation/fluoride.cfm
Excerpt:
What are EPA's drinking water regulations for fluoride?
In 1974, Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act. This law requires EPA to determine the level of contaminants in drinking water at which no adverse health effects are likely to occur. These non-enforceable health goals, based solely on possible health risks and exposure over a lifetime with an adequate margin of safety, are called maximum contaminant level goals (MCLG). Contaminants are any physical, chemical, biological or radiological substances or matter in water.
The MCLG for fluoride is 4.0 mg/L or 4.0 ppm. EPA has set this level of protection based on the best available science to prevent potential health problems. EPA has set an enforceable regulation for fluoride, called a maximum contaminant level (MCL), at 4.0 mg/L or 4.0 ppm. MCLs are set as close to the health goals as possible, considering cost, benefits and the ability of public water systems to detect and remove contaminants using suitable treatment technologies. In this case, the MCL equals the MCLG, because analytical methods or treatment technology do not pose any limitation.
EPA has also set a secondary standard (SMCL) for fluoride at 2.0 mg/L or 2.0 ppm. Secondary standards are non-enforceable guidelines regulating contaminants that may cause cosmetic effects (such as skin or tooth discoloration) or aesthetic effects (such as taste, odor, or color) in drinking water. EPA recommends secondary standards to water systems but does not require systems to comply. However, states may choose to adopt them as enforceable standards. Tooth discoloration and/or pitting is caused by excess fluoride exposures during the formative period prior to eruption of the teeth in children. The secondary standard of 2.0 mg/L is intended as a guideline for an upper bound level in areas which have high levels of naturally occurring fluoride. The level of the SMCL was set based upon a balancing of the beneficial effects of protection from tooth decay and the undesirable effects of excessive exposures leading to discoloration.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/02/22/epa-reverses-fluoride/
Excerpt:
“Fraud in even just one lab can have a significant impact on several thousands, millions of people,” said a spokesman for the EPA OIG. “We think this is an area vulnerable and susceptible to fraud.” The fraud involves both drinking water and wastewater laboratory testing. It includes manipulating equipment to make it look like the experimental protocol was followed or the correct result was produced. EPA OIG also found evidence of altered signatures on reports, no maintenance records on instruments, and numerous quality control failures.
EPA has a long history of scientific malpractice. Both the General Accounting Office and the Congressional Research Service have been severely critical of EPA's policies and procedures on a variety of issues. EPA has violated its own risk assessment guidelines and debased scientific standards regarding secondhand smoke. It was found guilty of violating six federal statutes for using harassment and intimidation to try to compel employee support for its policy on secondhand smoke. It has fraudulently misrepresented the findings of other scientists in order to make it appear they supported conclusions EPA favored. A dozen career employees of EPA wrote a letter to the Washington Times “risking our careers rather than choosing to remain silent” about “egregious misconduct” at EPA. Internal documents available under the Freedom of Information Act show that EPA exaggerated claims and promulgated unwarranted policies. EPA has gone against the advice of it own Science Advisory Board (see, for example, its history of action on particulates.) EPA fraudulently manufactured fake “scientific” studies in order to support its views on sulfur dioxide (see my book MAKERS AND TAKERS for fuller explanation of this.) EPA has funneled taxpayer money to lobby groups that support political action on policies—even unscientific ones—that EPA wants to promote.
http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/basicinformation/fluoride.cfm
Excerpt:
What are EPA's drinking water regulations for fluoride?
In 1974, Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act. This law requires EPA to determine the level of contaminants in drinking water at which no adverse health effects are likely to occur. These non-enforceable health goals, based solely on possible health risks and exposure over a lifetime with an adequate margin of safety, are called maximum contaminant level goals (MCLG). Contaminants are any physical, chemical, biological or radiological substances or matter in water.
The MCLG for fluoride is 4.0 mg/L or 4.0 ppm. EPA has set this level of protection based on the best available science to prevent potential health problems. EPA has set an enforceable regulation for fluoride, called a maximum contaminant level (MCL), at 4.0 mg/L or 4.0 ppm. MCLs are set as close to the health goals as possible, considering cost, benefits and the ability of public water systems to detect and remove contaminants using suitable treatment technologies. In this case, the MCL equals the MCLG, because analytical methods or treatment technology do not pose any limitation.
EPA has also set a secondary standard (SMCL) for fluoride at 2.0 mg/L or 2.0 ppm. Secondary standards are non-enforceable guidelines regulating contaminants that may cause cosmetic effects (such as skin or tooth discoloration) or aesthetic effects (such as taste, odor, or color) in drinking water. EPA recommends secondary standards to water systems but does not require systems to comply. However, states may choose to adopt them as enforceable standards. Tooth discoloration and/or pitting is caused by excess fluoride exposures during the formative period prior to eruption of the teeth in children. The secondary standard of 2.0 mg/L is intended as a guideline for an upper bound level in areas which have high levels of naturally occurring fluoride. The level of the SMCL was set based upon a balancing of the beneficial effects of protection from tooth decay and the undesirable effects of excessive exposures leading to discoloration.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/02/22/epa-reverses-fluoride/
Excerpt:
Our government has a pretty abysmal track record when it comes acknowledging the potential health risks associated with certain chemicals, particularly when its agencies have already determined these products as “safe”, encouraged, and in some cases mandated their use. So it is somewhat encouraging to see the EPA acknowledging the need to revise their position on fluoride and should be commended for it.
Nonetheless, here is
http://fluoridealert.org/nj.html
http://www.planetagenda.com/Nuclear%20conflicts%20of%20interest.htm
Excerpt:
Conflict of interest for Christine Todd Whitman?
The EPA's ombudsman says Whitman muzzled him for criticizing a sweetheart Superfund settlement with a big investor in her husband's firm.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Mark Hertsgaard
Jan. 14, 2002 | The ombudsman for the Environmental Protection Agency says he was punished by administrator Christine Todd Whitman after he opposed an agreement to sharply limit the amount of money financial titan Citigroup -- a principal investor in Whitman's husband's venture capital firm -- would have to pay in a controversial Superfund cleanup case.
EPA ombudsman Robert J. Martin, who functions as the agency's public interest advocate, alleges that Whitman ordered his office reassigned within the EPA bureaucracy and stripped of its independence after he opposed a nuclear-waste cleanup settlement with Citigroup that would limit its liability to a fraction of the cleanup cost.
Martin made the conflict of interest charge against Whitman in a lawsuit filed Jan. 10 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The suit sought a temporary restraining order to prevent the ombudsman's duties and investigative files from being transferred to the EPA's Office of Inspector General, an agency Martin has clashed with in the past and is currently investigating. Through a spokesperson, Whitman denied Martin's charges.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Christine_Todd_Whitman
Excerpt:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa089.html
Excerpt:
Much of the government's Superfund budget has been spent on self-defeating and unjust litigation and shoddy, repetitive feasibility studies on the possibilities for cleanup. As a result of the government's litigation strategies, corporations choose to drag out court battles forever. As a result of its low-quality research and analysis, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has little or no idea what it is doing. Yet in the 1986 reauthorization and expansion of Superfund, Congress and the Reagan administration paid little attention to the program's inherent defects.
In many ways, Superfund has made the environment a more dangerous place. Fear of unlimited liability has scared off private businesses from doing voluntary cleanups. An atmosphere of public hysteria that EPA has sometimes stirred up intentionally has created a nationwide NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard) response that is causing a dangerous shortage of disposal sites for currently generated hazardous waste. Worst of all, perhaps we have wasted time that could have been used to effectively address the real hazards presented by abandoned hazardous waste dumps.
Even though Superfund has been plagued with problems and many experts have expressed grave doubts about its effectuality, last year Congress reauthorized the program and increased its five-year budget fivefold, from $1.6 billion to over $9 billion. Yet much of the new program is designed, instead of for solving serious threats, for providing photo opportunities for politicians.
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/1f1ed00f58e6dc3c8525788d00535b3e!OpenDocument
Excerpt:
Release date: 05/11/2011
Contact Information: Stacy Kika, Kika.stacy@epa.gov, 202-564-0906, 202-564-4355
WASHINGTON – Prem Kumar, also known as Premakumaran Krishnan, a citizen of India, has been added to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) fugitive list for failing to surrender to federal law enforcement authorities after he was indicted for his role in an illegal ocean-going vessel wastewater discharge case. Illegally discharging wastewater into the ocean threatens aquatic life and can lead to fish kills, contamination of fish and shellfish, and may have long-term ecological effects.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=17666
Excerpt:
Stock trader denies ties
to HiEnergy, mafiaBut sealed grand jury indictment alleges mob connection
Posted: March 10, 2003
2:42 am Eastern
By Sherrie Gossett
http://www.twst.com/ceos/ABK604.htm
WorldNetDaily.com
Professional stock trader Phil Gurian discussed the recent controversy surrounding him and his alleged ties with the mafia and with aviation security company HiEnergy Technologies Inc. of Irvine, Calif., in an exclusive two-hour interview with WorldNetDaily.
For a long time, little has been known or written about the brilliant and soft-spoken Gurian, save a landmark 1997 Business Week article identifying him as the reputed right-hand man of the under-boss of the DeCavalcante crime family.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=William_A._Nitze
Excerpt:
News Item, 30 July 2003: "HiEnergy Incorporates HiEnergy Defense, Inc., a Subsidiary Dedicated to Defense Applications of SuperSenzor. Appoints Col. Bill Lacey William J. Lacey, Jr. and Hon. William A. Nitze to Lead." Nitze will serve as Chairman of the Board.
http://investing.businessweek.com/businessweek/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=5919780&privcapId=5919814&previousCapId=21381&previousTitle=Kleiner,%20Perkins,%20Caufield%20&%20Byers
Excerpt:
Mr. William A. Nitze serves as Chairman and President of The Aspen Institute. Mr. Nitze serves as Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Climate Clean, Inc. He served as an Acting Chief Executive Officer of Hienergy Technologies Inc., since January 24, 2007. He served as the President of Gemstar Group from May 2001 to 2005, which he founded in May 2001. Prior to Gemstar, Mr. Nitze served as Assistant Administrator for International Activities during the Clinton
http://fluoridealert.org/nj.html
http://www.planetagenda.com/Nuclear%20conflicts%20of%20interest.htm
Excerpt:
Conflict of interest for Christine Todd Whitman?
The EPA's ombudsman says Whitman muzzled him for criticizing a sweetheart Superfund settlement with a big investor in her husband's firm.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Mark Hertsgaard
Jan. 14, 2002 | The ombudsman for the Environmental Protection Agency says he was punished by administrator Christine Todd Whitman after he opposed an agreement to sharply limit the amount of money financial titan Citigroup -- a principal investor in Whitman's husband's venture capital firm -- would have to pay in a controversial Superfund cleanup case.
EPA ombudsman Robert J. Martin, who functions as the agency's public interest advocate, alleges that Whitman ordered his office reassigned within the EPA bureaucracy and stripped of its independence after he opposed a nuclear-waste cleanup settlement with Citigroup that would limit its liability to a fraction of the cleanup cost.
Martin made the conflict of interest charge against Whitman in a lawsuit filed Jan. 10 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The suit sought a temporary restraining order to prevent the ombudsman's duties and investigative files from being transferred to the EPA's Office of Inspector General, an agency Martin has clashed with in the past and is currently investigating. Through a spokesperson, Whitman denied Martin's charges.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Christine_Todd_Whitman
Excerpt:
N.J. voter suppression allegations
Her 1992 election campaign was marred by claims by her campaign manager Ed Rollins of voter suppression tactics. In a November 1993 speech, Rollins boasted "about how he had just helped win a governorship for New Jersey's Christine Todd Whitman, [and] said the campaign had spent about $ 500,000 to suppress the black vote. He said GOP operatives had made payments to Democratic precinct workers in black areas on condition they sit on their hands on election day. And he said the Whitman campaign had contributed to church charities in return for black ministers keeping mum on the virtues of Democratic incumbent James Florio," reported Columbia Journalism Review. Rollins later recanted, then re-affirmed his statements about voter suppression. [8]http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa089.html
Excerpt:
The Real Superfund Scandal
by James Bovard
James Bovard is an adjunct policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. He has written widely on environmental issues.
Executive Summary
Superfund has failed to safeguard the nation's environment. After close to seven years, fewer than 20 hazardous waste sites have been fully cleaned up, and many of those are reportedly still leaking. The nation's premier environmental program is largely a move-a-dump-a-day shuffle, a merry-go-round for hazardous wastes. And, according to one government report, most of the disposal sites that have received waste from Superfund sites also pose serious health threats--meaning that Superfund has accomplished little or nothing.[1] Much of the government's Superfund budget has been spent on self-defeating and unjust litigation and shoddy, repetitive feasibility studies on the possibilities for cleanup. As a result of the government's litigation strategies, corporations choose to drag out court battles forever. As a result of its low-quality research and analysis, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has little or no idea what it is doing. Yet in the 1986 reauthorization and expansion of Superfund, Congress and the Reagan administration paid little attention to the program's inherent defects.
In many ways, Superfund has made the environment a more dangerous place. Fear of unlimited liability has scared off private businesses from doing voluntary cleanups. An atmosphere of public hysteria that EPA has sometimes stirred up intentionally has created a nationwide NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard) response that is causing a dangerous shortage of disposal sites for currently generated hazardous waste. Worst of all, perhaps we have wasted time that could have been used to effectively address the real hazards presented by abandoned hazardous waste dumps.
Even though Superfund has been plagued with problems and many experts have expressed grave doubts about its effectuality, last year Congress reauthorized the program and increased its five-year budget fivefold, from $1.6 billion to over $9 billion. Yet much of the new program is designed, instead of for solving serious threats, for providing photo opportunities for politicians.
http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d/1f1ed00f58e6dc3c8525788d00535b3e!OpenDocument
Excerpt:
Prem Kumar Added to EPA Fugitive List / Defendant failed to surrender after indictment in illegal vessel pollution case
Release date: 05/11/2011
Contact Information: Stacy Kika, Kika.stacy@epa.gov, 202-564-0906, 202-564-4355
WASHINGTON – Prem Kumar, also known as Premakumaran Krishnan, a citizen of India, has been added to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) fugitive list for failing to surrender to federal law enforcement authorities after he was indicted for his role in an illegal ocean-going vessel wastewater discharge case. Illegally discharging wastewater into the ocean threatens aquatic life and can lead to fish kills, contamination of fish and shellfish, and may have long-term ecological effects.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=17666
Excerpt:
Stock trader denies ties
to HiEnergy, mafiaBut sealed grand jury indictment alleges mob connection
Posted: March 10, 2003
2:42 am Eastern
By Sherrie Gossett
http://www.twst.com/ceos/ABK604.htm
WorldNetDaily.com
Professional stock trader Phil Gurian discussed the recent controversy surrounding him and his alleged ties with the mafia and with aviation security company HiEnergy Technologies Inc. of Irvine, Calif., in an exclusive two-hour interview with WorldNetDaily.
For a long time, little has been known or written about the brilliant and soft-spoken Gurian, save a landmark 1997 Business Week article identifying him as the reputed right-hand man of the under-boss of the DeCavalcante crime family.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=William_A._Nitze
Excerpt:
News Item, 30 July 2003: "HiEnergy Incorporates HiEnergy Defense, Inc., a Subsidiary Dedicated to Defense Applications of SuperSenzor. Appoints Col. Bill Lacey William J. Lacey, Jr. and Hon. William A. Nitze to Lead." Nitze will serve as Chairman of the Board.
http://investing.businessweek.com/businessweek/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=5919780&privcapId=5919814&previousCapId=21381&previousTitle=Kleiner,%20Perkins,%20Caufield%20&%20Byers
Excerpt:
Mr. William A. Nitze serves as Chairman and President of The Aspen Institute. Mr. Nitze serves as Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Climate Clean, Inc. He served as an Acting Chief Executive Officer of Hienergy Technologies Inc., since January 24, 2007. He served as the President of Gemstar Group from May 2001 to 2005, which he founded in May 2001. Prior to Gemstar, Mr. Nitze served as Assistant Administrator for International Activities during the Clinton
No comments:
Post a Comment