Today, the Office of Inspector General (OIG)…
Today, the Office of Inspector General (OIG)
released a report on EPA’s process as it relates to the
greenhouse gas endangerment finding. Some news accounts have
mischaracterized the report’s findings. The following is
EPA’s statement in response to the OIG report and some
important excerpts from that report.
We appreciate the important role played by the Inspector
General’s Office and will give the recommendations in this
report the utmost consideration.
Most importantly, the report does not question or even address the
science used or the conclusions reached – by EPA under this
and the previous administration – that greenhouse gas
pollution poses a threat to the health and welfare of the American
people. Instead, the report is focused on questions of process and
procedure. While EPA will consider the specific recommendations, we
disagree strongly with the Inspector General’s findings and
followed all the appropriate guidance in preparing this
finding.
EPA undertook a thorough and deliberate process in the development
of this finding, including a careful review of the wide range of
peer-reviewed science. Since EPA finalized the endangerment finding
in December of 2009, the vast body of peer reviewed science that
EPA relied on to make its determination has undergone further
examination by a wide range of independent scientific bodies. All
of those reviews have upheld the validity of the science.
EXCERPTS FROM OIG REPORT:
EPA met statutory
requirements for rulemakings.
We did not test the validity of the scientific or
technical information used by EPA to support its endangerment
finding.
We did not make conclusions regarding the impact that
EPA’s information quality control systems may have had on the
scientific information used to support the endangerment
finding.
EPA fulfilled the statutory requirements for notice and
comment rulemakings mandated in the Administrative Procedure Act
and in Section 307 of the CAA, and employed several of its
processes designed to ensure data quality.
OMB in response to our draft report stated that OMB
believes that EPA reasonably interpreted the OMB bulletin in
concluding that the TSD did not meet the bulletin’s
definition of a highly influential scientific
assessment.