Posted on 07/20/2018 11:25:28 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
We can add “EPA chemical safety science” to the list of taxpayer funded benefits that former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt kept for himself.
New emails uncovered by American Oversight show EPA employees were concerned about the level of formaldehyde in an ornate desk that Pruitt had sought to purchase for his office.
The emails emerged even as EPA officials have continued to block the release of a scientific report on the dangers of formaldehyde exposure.
In early 2017, newly-appointed Administrator Pruitt selected an ornate desk from Amazon and instructed staff to order it. One of the EPA staffers noticed that the Amazon product page included a California Proposition 65 warning – prompting them to ask EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention for an expert opinion.
EPA’s chemical safety office responded, suggesting that the desk likely contained formaldehyde. The official noted formaldehyde is classified as a carcinogen, but thanks to California regulations governing formaldehyde emissions from wood products, the “desk is likely to be fine.”
Ultimately, EPA officials decided the safest course of action to limit Pruitt’s potential formaldehyde exposure would be to set up the desk in an EPA warehouse for several days to allow any vapors to dissipate.
The irony would be comical if this wasn’t so dangerous. Months after Pruitt got the benefit of EPA’s public safety experts looking out for his own health, he blocked the release of an EPA report on the dangers of formaldehyde.
According to Politico:
The Trump administration is suppressing an Environmental Protection Agency report that warns that most Americans inhale enough formaldehyde vapor in the course of daily life to put them at risk of developing leukemia and other ailments, a current and a former agency official told POLITICO.
The warnings are contained in a draft health assessment EPA scientists completed just before Donald Trump became president, according to the officials. They said top advisers to departing Administrator Scott Pruitt are delaying its release as part of a campaign to undermine the agency’s independent research into the health risks of toxic chemicals.
Trump needs to make this a priority.
Every holdover must go.
These people are beyond irrational.
Have we just lost our damned minds? Can you imagine if these communist took over? What a bunch of nothing and YOU are paying for this. Pruitt did a fantastic and amazing job and IO regard him highly.
He bought a desk made of particle board? Now that’s classy...
Saving money for the country?
An ornate desk made out of particle board. From Amazon. And yet the lamestream media and the liberals ran him out of town for profligate spending.
I think formaldehyde is a legitimate concern. Or, at least something is in modern building materials. Bought a new couch and recliner just over a year ago, and I couldn’t lie down on either of them without feeling like crap. I think they are sufficiently fumigated now, but I’ve noticed similar reactions when being in new or remodeled buildings.
The multiple incompetencys involved in this story are comical. An agency that is afraid of a piece of furniture is too stupid to live. An environmental agency that doesn't understand that virtually everything is "known" by the State of California to cause cancer is too stupid to live. If that's what EPA is today, shut it down. Or just let it be known that there are chemicals in the EPA headquarters and watch the employees scatter like roaches.
Bunch of stupid leftists
“I think formaldehyde is a legitimate concern. Or, at least something is in modern building materials. Bought a new couch and recliner just over a year ago, and I couldn’t lie down on either of them without feeling like crap. I think they are sufficiently fumigated now, but I’ve noticed similar reactions when being in new or remodeled buildings.”
Reminds me of my HS days when some of my friends took their cars to Tijuana for a “Mexican Tuck and Roll Upholstery job.”If you weren’t there, the Mexicans would “substitute” cow manure for foam padding in the pleats!
New carpet, new mobile homes. Just need to open the windows and let them “air cure” for a day or two. Everything is not deadly unless you believe it is. If pesticides were dangerous I would have been dead years ago. I spread the stuff for two seasons all over 100 acres with a tractor 60 years ago. I didn’t have vaccines except smallpox, and I may have had 5-6 shots of anti-biotic in my 84 years. I’m healthy and active. I still believe I can do anything (until I stoop over and have trouble straightening up)
Climate Nazis.. nothing more nothing less
get rid of this and about 4 other federal boondoggles masquerading as working for the Americans here legally agencies.. Streamline DC and save the nation.
Um, to be clear, I (jokingly) speculated that the desk was made of particle board, because that stuff is known to contain a lot of formaldehyde.
I have no actual knowledge about the desk in question!
Sorry!
That said, I’m not aware of any real/high quality wood being laden with formaldehyde either. Perhaps in the joining glue?
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