http://cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/epa-concedes-we-can-t-produce-all-data-justifying-clean-air-rules(CNSNews.com) ? Seven months after being subpoenaed by Congress, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy conceded that her agency does not have - and cannot produce - all of the scientific data used for decades to justify numerous rules and regulations under the Clean Air Act.
In a March 7th letter to House Science, Space and Technology Committee chairman Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), McCarthy admitted that EPA cannot produce all of the original data from the 1993 Harvard Six Cities Study (HSC) and the American Cancer Society?s (ACS) 1995 Cancer Prevention Study II, which is currently housed at New York University.
Both studies concluded that fine airborne particles measuring 2.5 micrograms or less (PM2.5) ? 1/30th the diameter of a human hair ? are killing thousands of Americans every year.
These epidemiological studies are cited by EPA as the scientific foundation for clean air regulations that restrict particulate emissions from vehicles, power plants and factories.
The agency has recently come under fire for exposing volunteers to concentrated levels of particulate matter without informing them of the risks, a practice Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.), chairman of the House Science Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, called ?despicable.?
The full committee, which issued its first subpoena in 21 years last August after being stonewalled by the EPA for two years, wanted the raw data from the studies so that their results could be replicated by independent researchers. (See EPA subpoena.pdf)
However, despite ?multiple interactions with the third party owners of the research data in an effort to obtain that data,? McCathy wrote, some of the data subpoenaed by the committee ?are not (and were not) in the possession, custody or control of the EPA, nor are they within the authority to obtain data that the agency identified.?
