To Regulate or not to Regulate: That is the Question

Environmental policy has changed drastically in the last four years due to a series of small, quiet changes that could have gone unnoticed.

But on August 15, 16, 17, 2004, The Washington Post published a trio of articles that revealed altered environmental regulations on everything from workplace safety to pesticides.

This policy shift is a result of stark philosophical differences between the Clinton and Bush administrations, which not only see environmental issues differently, but also the act of regulation.

Regulations - Is less more?

A president’s administration manages agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which create and enforce regulations.

An administration’s philosophy of government (especially ideas about government regulation) directs these agencies and guides their decision and policy-making.

The Clinton administration philosophy considered government regulation to be an essential tool in crafting a stronger nation. The EPA and OSHA were encouraged to create necessary regulations to protect the environment and workers, respectively.

The Bush administration philosophy is that government regulation can be burdensome, to the public and private sectors alike. Bush is in favor of paring down regulatory agencies like OSHA to save federal tax dollars and his administration encourages industries to regulate themselves voluntarily.

Fewer standards - OSHA

Since Bush took office, OSHA, a part of the Labor Department that regulates workplace conditions, has eliminated many more pending standards than it has completed.

Every administration is heir to unfinished regulations from the previous one and must decide whether or not to continue the regulatory work or to abandon it. According to The Post’s analysis, Bush canceled the majority of pending regulations that he inherited from the Clinton administration and has encouraged fewer of his own regulations than Clinton or Bush senior before him.

But who says it’s better to have more rules? Bush supporters say he is effectively streamlining costly regulations, while critics claim he’s cutting back on government protections, causing workers to suffer.

Bush administration cuts of pending tuberculosis regulations illustrate these points of view.

TB - is it back?

OSHA tracks potential hazards to workers and decides which are serious enough to warrant government regulation. The Clinton administration decided that rising rates of tuberculosis were a significant threat and decided to begin working on new rules that would protect workers in danger, such as those who work in hospitals, drug-treatment centers and prisons. OSHA estimated that the new standards would prevent 25,000 infections and 135 deaths each year.

Though proposed in 1997, the regulations were not completed by the time President Bush took office. The new rules remained untouched until December 31, 2003, when the Bush administration cancelled them.

According to the OSHA report, the regulations were no longer needed because TB rates were on the decline and hospitals were beginning to comply with federal guidelines for prevention provided by the Centers for Disease Control. Further, the report argues that new regulations were unlikely to be effective.

This point of view fits with the philosophy of John D. Graham, who oversees all federal regulation in the Bush administration. Graham believes most regulations are unfair impositions on state governments and private businesses and that, in general, OSHA regulations are unproductive. In most cases, Graham prefers to encourage voluntary compliance with government guidelines, not force adherence to government regulations.

But public health officials report that TB rates are increasing in many states. University of California at Berkeley professor Mark Nicas conducted a recent study that found that many hospitals, even those that tend to comply with the CDC standards, continue to put their employees at risk.

At issue are safe working conditions and government intervention. Government regulation costs taxpayers and private businesses money, but when is it worth it? The party in power gets to decide.

Considering data

In 2000, Republicans added two sentences to a 712-page bill called the General Government Appropriations Act. These two sentences, officially called the Data Quality Act, made it easier for agencies and companies to question the science behind proposed regulations. Buried in the huge bill, the Data Quality Act went unnoticed by most legislators and was not debated in Congress. However, similar legislation had been debated in the past, and did not have the support to pass.

The General Government Appropriations Act did pass, however, bringing the soon-to-be contentious Data Quality Act along with it.

The Data Quality Act allows people and companies to petition any pending government regulations based information that they believe to be inaccurate.

Some say the law is valuable because it sets high standards for researchers and prevents expensive regulations from being based on questionable data.

Others argue that the law merely slows the regulatory process and allows companies to create and fund their own scientific studies which inevitably complicate the data pool.

Hermaphroditic frogs?

Consider the case of the hermaphroditic frogs.

As detailed in The Washington Post, Harvard-trained biologist Tyrone B. Hayes found that atrazine, a common pesticide sprayed on corn, caused frogs to develop with both male and female genitalia. What’s more, the abnormality occurred when frogs were raised in water with very low atrazine levels - levels that were at a fraction of the legal limit allowed in U.S. drinking water.

Hayes first made this discovery when working at EcoRisk, a company hired by Syngenta to test the chemical. (Syngenta sells millions of dollars in atrazine each year.)

When Syngenta would not approve Hayes results for publication, he duplicated the experiments independently and published his findings in Nature and with the National Academy of Sciences.

Because Hayes’ results suggested government regulation of atrazine, Syngenta set its sights on the Data Quality Act.

The company sponsored several studies whose results contradicted Hayes’ findings, and since the EPA has no test of its own for ‘hormone disruption,’ the EPA found that there was a lack of sufficient evidence to regulate the chemical. The EPA has required Syngenta to track contamination for the next three years and to work with farmers to reduce atrazine levels that are "of concern."

But since the EPA has not clarified the level of contamination that warrants "concern," Syngenta is left to regulate itself.

Industry loophole?

Many say that the Data Quality Act is merely a loophole for companies that don’t want their profits to shrink with the creation of new government regulations.

David Michaels, who worked in the Energy Department during the Clinton administration, says that companies can manufacture conflicting results in order to raise questions about data that encourage regulation.

But those who question the validity of government regulation in the first place say that the Data Quality Act is a chance for all groups -- not just industry -- to double check the validity of a new rule.

But the Data Quality Act, a tiny, un-debated, two-sentence law, has effectively changed environmental policy-making as we know it by preventing the EPA from acting on evidence of environmental contamination. Now, the EPA must seriously consider industry protests before it can regulate.

Tough questions

With industry fighting tooth and nail to avoid environmental and workplace regulations, how can government prevent the tampering of data that are so vital to our well being?

How can we be sure that harmful chemicals will not reach our water sources? How can we protect workers from unsafe practices? How can we ensure that unnecessary regulations don’t hamper economic growth?

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Article Posted on: 8/26/2004