EPA Watchdog Says Officials Violated Whistleblower Protections With Dissenting Scientist

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington on Jan. 4, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

An internal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) watchdog has found that top officials wrongfully retaliated against three staff scientists who disagreed about the handling of risk assessment procedures for new chemicals.

It’s also alleged that risk assessments were altered, despite objections from the scientists, to approve the new chemicals for use within a “ridiculous” 90-day statutory deadline.

According to the Sept. 17 Whistleblower Reprisal Investigation findings, the EPA’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) watchdog received hotline complaints from five EPA scientists who raised multiple misconduct allegations, including that the agency took retaliatory actions from 2019 through 2022.

Across the five separate reports, the OIG said it found that three of these employees faced retaliation in violation of the EPA’s Scientific Integrity Policy after protesting the rushing through of human health assessments for new chemicals being approved for commercial release. The OIG also found that one scientist was retaliated against in violation of the Whistleblower Protection Act.

As part of the alleged retaliation, the three scientists had performance ratings downgraded, were passed over for promotion, and had awards withheld, or were moved to other areas in the agency.

In the OIG reports, staff and managers said they felt tremendous pressure to approve new chemicals and that leaders at the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention was “pushing us like animals on a farm.”

The whistleblowers were also reportedly called “pot stirrers” and accused of “trying to indict every chemical” by being too “conservative” in their approach. The watchdog found that this affected other employees’ willingness to stand up to management.

A person whose name was redacted testified that disagreeing and causing any delay to the backlog of cases could cause management to label an employee “problematic.”

The EPA’s 90-day review process was implemented under the 2016 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for the agency to assess the safety of new chemicals, although additional time can be requested by the chemical submitters if they want to provide more information to challenge the EPA’s initial assessment.

The TSCA requires the EPA to evaluate potential risks from new and existing chemicals, and address any unreasonable risks chemicals may have on human health and the environment. The agency can place a ban on the production of flagged chemicals or require mitigation measures.

EPA Issues Ongoing for Years

These incidents are alleged to have first occurred during former President Trump’s administration, but the whistleblowers allege that science integrity issues at the agency are ongoing.

Kyla Bennett, director of policy at the organization Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), who filed the complaints on behalf of the scientists, said the problems flagged by the scientists have continued under the Biden Administration.

PEER says the affected EPA scientists are chemistry doctorate Sarah Gallagher, medicinal chemistry doctorate Martin Phillips, and biochemistry/molecular biology doctorate William Irwin.

“The Inspector General’s findings point to ongoing scientific integrity problems in EPA that directly endanger public health,” Bennett said.

“Many of the problems the IG identified in EPA’s chemicals division under the Trump administration continue unabated today, despite the Biden Administration’s tweaks to the program.”

Before the 2016 amendment to the TSCA, the Risk Assessment Division of the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics—which sits within the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention—conducted full assessments on only about 20 percent of all new chemical submissions. But “as a result of the 2016 amendment, the EPA was required to conduct a full assessment for every chemical within the same statutory 90-day deadline,” the watchdog said.

“Despite the increased workload, the division did not receive an increase in staff or contractor resources,” it added.

The IG reports of whistleblower retaliation have been submitted to EPA Administrator Michael Regan and Congress under a statute requiring that he suspend identified retaliating managers for at least three days and to fire repeat offenders.

According to PEER, after 3,830 new chemicals were reviewed by the EPA, not a single chemical was barred from entering the marketplace.

PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse, who was also formerly a senior EPA enforcement attorney, said the reports coming out of the EPA should set off “alarm bells about the efficacy of the laws and policies designed to protect the work of scientists within EPA.”

“Even today, EPA continues to approve new chemicals without really understanding the risks these chemicals pose to human health and the environment,” he said.

The IOG is expected to release more reports on the substance of the whistleblower complaints in the near future. The Epoch Times has contacted the Environmental Protection Agency for comment.