How A Leading Democrat Wreaked Havoc On EPA Science

David Lewis Research Director, Focus For Health Foundation
Font Size:

In 1991, when Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) chaired a subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, EPA was bent on tightening clean air standards. Dingell, who was associated with the UAW and represented a district populated with autoworkers, opposed EPA’s efforts.

To get tough on EPA, Dingell turned to EPA Inspector General John C. Martin for help. Martin agreed to investigate grants and contracts issued by EPA’s Office of Research & Development (ORD). Dingell hoped the investigations would spark oversight hearings, prosecutions and bad press for EPA.

EPA scientists at ORD were sitting ducks. They were poorly trained concerning rules governing federal assistance agreements. And, to make matters worse, EPA headquarters had often provided inconsistent, even contradictory, guidance.

In order to directly support Dingell’s objectives, Martin revised his agents’ performance standards. At least 25% of their cases had to result in prosecutions to obtain a satisfactory performance rating. He also awarded extra points for cases involving high-ranking officials that drew national media attention.

My outspoken objections to Dingell and Martin upending ORD were widely covered by the Washington Post, Science magazine and others. Nevertheless, EPA Administrator Carol Browner looked the other way as Martin teamed up with the Justice Department to investigate and prosecute unsuspecting EPA managers. One lab director targeted in Florida died of a heart attack.

With ORD’s managers paralyzed by fear of prosecution, bureaucratic gridlock spread throughout the organization. Scientists, for example, were instructed to rewrite research grants from previous fiscal years. Many millions of dollars in research grants awarded in the past, which EPA had closed out, had to be updated to reflect the exact amounts each grantee had spent, to the penny.

It’s not uncommon for academic institutions to have some spare change leftover when their grants expire. Apparently, professors who teach calculus can’t figure out how to spend exactly $250,000.00.

While ORD was drowning in a sea of paperwork, Vice President Al Gore appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, bragging about his accomplishments in reducing government red tape. I forwarded Mr. Gore several examples of EPA memos directing scientists to rewrite grants from previous federal budgets to account for, in one case, eight cents, and in another, 12 cents.

I suggested that he lobby his fellow Democrats on the Hill to introduce and pass a “Gum Ball Act.” Its purpose would be to allow federal grantees to buy gum balls with any stray pennies left over when their grants expire. To my surprise, Gore had one of his staff members call me, and he shut down the grant revision process.

Eventually, federal administrative law judges tossed out all of the cases Martin had engineered at the behest of Chairman Dingell. Even so, many of ORD’s most seasoned scientists no longer wished to work at EPA, and opted for early retirement.

In 1996, I documented the fallout from Dingell’s assault on ORD in a Nature commentary, “EPA Science: Casualty of election politics.” The Atlanta Constitution also reported on Martin’s misguided investigations in an article titled: “Cleared Chemist’s Victory Leaves Bitter Taste.” Martin resigned shortly after learning from me that Reader’s Digest was about to publish a similar article, titled “Weird Science at the EPA.”

Ironically, Martin’s son, John Martin, Jr., is currently conducting internal investigations of his own as a special agent in EPA’s Office of Homeland Security. Patrick Sullivan, Assistant Inspector General for Investigations, recently testified about it before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Sullivan complained that Martin Jr. refuses to share information on security threats with EPA’s Office of Inspector General, which is charged with investigating threats. This latest development exemplifies a phenomenon observers, both inside and outside of EPA, have witnessed over the decades. Problems at EPA tend to take on a life of their own, and never seem to go away.

Democrats, not surprisingly, were generally reluctant to get on board with my efforts to resist the politicization of science at EPA. A senior staff member working for Rep. Ralph Hall of Texas commented to me that many Democrats agree that EPA is in need of repair. The problem, he said, is that Democrats benefit from Republicans appearing anti-environmental every time they try to reform EPA. Clearly, Administrator Scott Pruitt has his work cut out for him.

David L. Lewis, Ph.D., a former senior-level EPA Research Microbiologist, is the Research Director for the Focus for Health Foundation in Watchung, NJ.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel