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EPA Admits to Altering Science Under Trump, Pledges New Course
Govexec ^ | 5/25/21 | Eric Katz

Posted on 05/26/2021 3:45:43 AM PDT by Libloather

Senior leaders at the Environmental Protection Agency improperly meddled in the work of career scientists when reviewing the approval of certain pesticides in 2018, according to a new report and the agency’s own admission.

The top officials changed and omitted items from documents related to the decision to grant licenses to three dicamba pesticides, the EPA inspector general found, and created a culture in which career employees felt “constrained” and “muted” from speaking up. In addition to violating EPA’s scientific integrity policies, the tampering left the agency vulnerable to lawsuits. The IG report followed widespread allegations of political interference in the work of career scientists under the Trump administration and comes amid a governmentwide Biden administration review into instances of such meddling.

The licenses for the pesticides, aimed at protecting cotton and soybean plants, were granted without the typical peer review panels. EPA scientists told the IG such reviews would not have impacted the results, due to the unusual level of involvement by several officials at the deputy assistant administration level. Those leaders removed career employees' assessment of concerns raised by stakeholders, the IG found, and the career staffers ultimately did not sign their names to final documents due to management’s revisions.

“Scientists reported that changes from senior management did not make sense and seemed to convey a lack of understanding of the data or analyses,” the IG said. “Multiple scientists said they felt directed to change the science to support a certain decision and that the reasons for senior managers’ requested changes were not documented.”

(Excerpt) Read more at govexec.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Conspiracy; Education; Outdoors
KEYWORDS: bureaucracy; climatechange; deniers; epa; science; trump
...conclusions that "did not make sense,"

Science.

1 posted on 05/26/2021 3:45:43 AM PDT by Libloather
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To: Libloather

The article is saying that Trump people interfered with the science.


2 posted on 05/26/2021 3:51:44 AM PDT by Lee'sGhost ("Just look at the flowers, Lizzie. Just look at the flowers.")
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To: Libloather

Aren’t these bureaucrats the same ones who support stopping use of fossil fuels.


3 posted on 05/26/2021 3:59:38 AM PDT by mosesdapoet (AKA Lee J Keslin posting in the hopes comments get passed around )
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To: Libloather

Aren’t these bureaucrats the same ones who support stopping use of fossil fuels.


4 posted on 05/26/2021 4:00:03 AM PDT by mosesdapoet (AKA Lee J Keslin posting in the hopes comments get passed around )
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To: Libloather

Decisions can be made, contrary to career lefty bureaucrats, that reflect policy differences that are not strictly based on “scientific” cooked studies. If Biden gets his ten percent these same scientists wouldn’t make a peep and would be tripping over themselves to lick O’Biden’s -—.


5 posted on 05/26/2021 4:00:37 AM PDT by McCarthysGhost (q)
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To: Libloather

So it is wrong to approve a pesticide or herbicide without rigorous testing before placing it on the market. However, if you place a “vaccine” offered to the general public without rigorous testing, that is good. The Left must value cotton and corn plants higher than humans. All “settled science”, of course.


6 posted on 05/26/2021 4:07:44 AM PDT by Wallace T. ( )
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To: Lee'sGhost

This is just like what happened over at the State Department.

State bureaucrats/insiders thought they owned the place and they would tell Trump what he was going to do. He went around them on North Korea, on Iran, had peace breaking out all over the Middle East.

I have had first hand dealings right inside EPA HQ. If there is any science in the EPA, it is political science. Over decades, the political left has vetted and staffed the place with leftist “scientists” to carry out a leftist agenda. It’s all interconnected. I am wondering if some of the whiners now “coming clean” about the “big bad anti-science Trump” are really trying to save their careers because their new masters are seeing some things that “need to be punished” for not obstructing and sabotaging Trump ... like that fake military man Vindman.


7 posted on 05/26/2021 4:12:55 AM PDT by Susquehanna Patriot ( )
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To: Lee'sGhost

Meanwhile, since Obama, 60% of US Temperatures that go into the NOAA database are manufactured with algorithm that create a long term warming trend and those adjustments strangely mirror CO2 in the atmosphere, yet, crickets.


8 posted on 05/26/2021 4:16:31 AM PDT by UNGN
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To: Wallace T.

Careful, your critical thinking skills are showing.


9 posted on 05/26/2021 4:17:17 AM PDT by DesertRhino (Dog is man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up. ....)
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To: Susquehanna Patriot

“Over decades, the political left has vetted and staffed the place with leftist “scientists” to carry out a leftist agenda.”

That went on steroids with Obama. Especially after he got elected for a second time. I drank myself out of it that election night, mourning the loss of our once-great America.


10 posted on 05/26/2021 4:19:21 AM PDT by polymuser (A socialist is a communist without the power to take everything from their citizens...yet.d)
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To: Wallace T.

“The Left must value cotton and corn plants higher than humans.”

They do.


11 posted on 05/26/2021 4:20:05 AM PDT by polymuser (A socialist is a communist without the power to take everything from their citizens...yet.d)
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To: Libloather
EPA’s scientific integrity

Uh-huh. Sure.

12 posted on 05/26/2021 4:20:54 AM PDT by Moltke (Reasoning with a liberal is like watering a rock in the hope to grow a building.)
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To: Lee'sGhost
The article is saying that Trump people interfered with the science.

More like the Deep State working against Trump interfered with science, just like they've been doing for years with the climate change scam.

13 posted on 05/26/2021 4:38:35 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith...)
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To: UNGN
Meanwhile, since Obama, 60% of US Temperatures that go into the NOAA database are manufactured with algorithm that create a long term warming trend and those adjustments strangely mirror CO2 in the atmosphere, yet, crickets.

They must be using "Dominion Temperature Counting Machines"

14 posted on 05/26/2021 4:44:50 AM PDT by fedupjohn (Waiting for Trump's new Caribbean Resort "Club Gitmo" to open for business! )
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To: Lee'sGhost
Lee'sGhost :" The article is saying that Trump people interfered with the science."

What is being said in this article is that the EPA responded to the incoming Trump bureaucratic leadership.
What's not being said is that the EPA, as well as the IG's office, has already been politicized.
When it comes to changes under the Socialistic Buy-den administration, everything has already been politicized by the "cancel culture"
and current employees don't want to be ostracized or identified with the former administration, so the 'weenies' complain about intimidation and science denial.
The truth lies somewhere in between.

15 posted on 05/26/2021 5:30:48 AM PDT by Tilted Irish Kilt
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To: Libloather

The EPA has killed millions of people throughout the world. The first EPA administrator, William Ruckelshaus banned DDT based on a book filled with lies and ignored the science. Every malaria death since can be blamed on him. EPA has been a political agency from the beginning and has never been about science.


16 posted on 05/26/2021 9:59:02 AM PDT by EastTexasTraveler
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