EPA plans to close labs, drop scientists and reduce oversight By David
Goldstein McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON - The Environmental
Protection Agency intends to close labs, cut its cadre of upper-level
scientists and reduce regulatory oversight, according to an internal
agency document. In a memo dated June 8, a top agency official outlined
"a set of proposed disinvestments, innovations, efficiencies and
consolidations" for the upcoming 2008 fiscal budget. "The decisions we
make will be critical, difficult and will have long-term consequences,"
EPA Chief Financial Officer Lyons Gray wrote. He said the EPA wanted to
limit duplication and find "opportunities for consolidation and
streamlining." EPA assistant administrators, regional administrators,
the general counsel and inspector general received the memo. Gray
called for creating "Centers of Excellence" within the agency that would
manage "contracts, grants and human resource work." Asked about the
memo, the agency said in a statement, "The EPA is committed to being
good stewards of our nation's environment and good stewards of our
nation's tax dollars." It said the agency hoped "to accelerate the pace
of environmental protection by promoting environmental results and
accountability, innovation and using the best available science." Jeff
Ruch, the executive director of Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility, a watchdog group that obtained the memo, said that
rather than consolidating to improve the agency, the EPA was "chopping
up the furniture to meet external budget targets." The EPA's budget has
been dropping steadily since it reached a record $8.13 billion in fiscal
2003. The Bush administration's proposed fiscal 2007 budget was nearly
$1 billion lower, but Congress hasn't yet approved a final version. The
fiscal 2008 budget plan is due in February. Gray said the financial
outlook was "very challenging." In his memo, he asked for plans to
close at least 20 percent of the EPA's 16 research laboratories by 2011
- a minimum 10 percent cut by 2009 and another 10 percent by 2011. He
asked agency officials to suggest upper-level staff cuts, which would
include scientists, analysts and managers. His memo hinted that more
reductions could be necessary later. Staff cuts could worsen what some
experts have said is already a deteriorating situation, particularly
with a significant number of EPA employees due to retire over the next
decade. M. Granger Morgan, the head of the Engineering and Policy
Department at Carnegie Mellon University and the chairman of the EPA
Science Advisory Board, told Congress in March, "The agency is in danger
of losing core scientific expertise in both conventional and emerging
environmental issues." Morgan testified that research and development
spending at the agency had fallen more than 16 percent since 2004. A
report in August from the EPA inspector general found that various
studies have concluded that the agency doesn't always have reliable data
to support its conclusions and "does not always use reliable science to
support its rules and regulations." Gray's memo also calls on the
agency to work with state and tribal groups to look for ways to reduce
regulatory oversight. "The state and tribal grants have been reduced 25
percent since the administration started," said Heather Taylor, the
deputy legislative director of the National Resources Defense Council,
an environmental advocacy group. "First we take away the money to do
their jobs, now we take away the oversight