4/11/98 Peer Review and the EPA Hudson River PCB Reassessment by Andy Mele EPA claims that its recent extension of the PCB Reassessment Record of Decision deadline to December 2000 is based on the need for peer review and more frequent responsiveness summaries. This process has already been delayed 12 times, has taken four times longer than originally intended, and is still nowhere near completion. Clearwater believes that the added delay is politically motivated, and spurious. General Electric's strategy is to cripple the Superfund process in any way it can. GE is spending millions to lobby for a "reformed" Superfund -- one that would make it virtually impossible to clean up the hundreds of toxic waste sites across the US. GE is also aggressively working to subvert the Hudson River Superfund process, not only to delay a potentially expensive cleanup, but, ironically, to demonstrate to the public that Superfund is a failure, thereby opening the door for destructive "reforms." Review has been built into the process fro m the outset. All EPA work products have been reviewed internally, and between staff and contractor. General Electric has received all the EPA work products, and has had ample opportunity (and resources) to conduct its own review. The environmental community has an EPA Technical Assistance Grant to hire objective experts to review all EPA work. If everyone has had the opportunity to review, then who gains from the delay? Only General Electric gains. They postpone any cleanup expenditures, and they gain time to perform more corporate science, in hopes of finding and advancing any new justifications for their a priori agenda: avoid paying for a cleanup at all costs. The public loses, because PCB exposure continues unabated. EPA Region 2 implemented the delay before Agency peer review policy existed. The fact is that Congressman Gerald Solomon, at GE's behest, held a "fact-finding" hearing last October 3, in which he convinced Region 2 administrators to slow down the already glacial pace of the PCB Reassessment. In casting about for ways to satisfy Rep. Solomon, EPA administrators selected a two-pronged strategy to justify their pre-emptive political collapse: peer review and responsiveness. The words were fed to them from Rep. Solomon, but the script was probably written by G.E. Is Solomon really being scripted by G.E.? In his letter to EPA Region 2 Deputy Regional Administrator William Muszynski, Solomon referred to his "...fact-finding hearing on October 2, 1997." In G.E.'s newsletter River Watch, the text describes "...an October 2, 1997, fact-finding hearing." While the wording is similar, what is really striking is the fact that the hearing took place on October 3, not 2, and both sources made the identical mistake, including the man whose hearing it was, pointing toward a common source. EPA claims that peer review will be objective are extremely unrealistic. Attempts to locate scientists who have not worked for chemical manufacturers or users, in order to provide objective review for the environmental community, have demonstrated to us that the majority of potential reviewers are likely to be biased in favor of the industry perspective. EPA will not be able to staff a panel with truly neutral reviewers. Thus peer review becomes an advocacy tool for General Electric. Will peer review and additional responsiveness guarantee EPA's ability to meet the new deadline? No. Examine Region 2's track record with regard to deadlines for a Record of Decision on the Hudson River PCB Reassessment, and you will find a trail of broken promises. There is nothing inherent in peer review or responsiveness that will lead to a predictable decision date. In fact, the addition of these processes will only open the Reassessment to an endless spiral of self-perpetuating delays as long as G.E. chooses to keep promoting new theories, presenting new data, and "correcting" EPA's work. EPA claims that responsiveness has been upgraded because "people deserve better." Other than General Electric, there are approximately 12 people in the upper Hudson region, most of them firmly allied with General Electric, who may benefit from the delay caused by additional responsiveness work. The millions of people in the lower Hudson Valley, and most in the upper Hudson as well, favor a rapid resolution to the PCB problem. As Congressman Maurice Hinchey said in his recent letter to EPA Administrator Carol Browner, "Let me be very clear that this delay was not requested by the larger public that will be affected. The people whom I represent want to see progress, and they are not seeing it. They want to see a proposed plan of action: they do not want another round of delays." Is EPA's peer review process going to have a positive impact on the decision? EPA maintains that its work should be "judged credible by those who deal with the agency." If EPA decides to resolve the PCB problem in a way that is unacceptable to General Electric, no amount of peer review will make the agency credible to G.E. Will peer review improve the quality of the scientific work product from EPA? Again, Rep. Maurice Hinchey to Carol Browner: "Region 2 staff had always assured me that its work was based on the best scientific knowledge. Should we take this clarification' [new peer review to obtain the best science] to mean that EPA Superfund decisions up till now have not been based on the best available science?" For more information, contact envaction@mail.clearwater.org.

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