The delay came in part from objections raised by White House officials but also from the Vice President’s Office concerning data and analysis of the NMFS but also NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration). In essence, the objections were dismissive of the science but lacked any scientific merit of their own. This is hardly surprising. This Administration hates regulation, just as it hates any constraint on its power. That is what makes Dick Cheney’s involvement so interesting and telling. As so much in the last 7 years has shown, Cheney is not a man to let facts, or the right whale, get in the way of his ideology.

On August 25, 2008, under pressure from Cheney, NOAA released a final environmental impact statement that proposed reducing maritime speed limits of 10 knots/hour around major seaports from 30 to 20 nautical miles and added a 5 year sunset to the rule. With the comments period to end September 29, a rule to be finalized, published, and enter into force 60 days later, the rule could take effect (barring legal challenge) within a couple of weeks of the Administration’s end.

A report released April 23, 2008 by the Union of Concerned Scientists found many instances of political interference in the work of EPA scientists. The study consisted of a questionnaire sent to 5,419 EPA scientists which genereated 1,586 responses. Of these, 889 (56%) reported such interference at least once in the last 5 years. 394 (25%) said they had experienced occasional to frequent instances of EPA officials misrepresenting their findings. 285 (18%) had seen selective or incomplete use of data to justify a particular regulatory outcome. 224 (14%) said they had been directed to exclude or alter technical data. Of 969 EPA scientists with more than 10 years of experience, 409 (43%) said political interference has increased in the last 5 years in comparison with the previous 5 years. 43 (4%) said it was less frequent. 492 (31%) said they could not express their views openly within the EPA; 382 (24%) said they felt they could not do so even outside the agency. Scientists who worked on regulations and on environmental risk assessments reported the most political interference, with the OMB (Office of Management and Budget) being the most frequently named offender.

An April 29, 2008 GAO report found numerous problems in the EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System which does assessments of the health risks of some 540 chemicals (for example, what risk of cancer do they pose, and at what level of exposure?). At the same time that other offices in the EPA, as well as state and local authorities have asked for assessments on hundreds of other chemicals, IRIS’s production of these assessments as virtually ground to a halt. In 2003, the EPA estimated it needed to do 50 risk assessments a year to keep up with demand. However, in 2005 it finished 4. In 2006, it completed 2.

In 2007, the primary focus of the GAO report, the EPA had 77 IRIS studies in process. On December 31 of that year, 70 were ongoing, 5 had been suspended by the President’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) which demanded further studies. As in 2006 only 2 IRIS assessments were completed. Of the 70 which had not been completed, 48 had been in process for more than 5 years, and 12 of the 48 for more than 9 years. In particular, the GAO noted the case of trichloroethylene (TCE) an industrial degreasing agent and the most frequently reported organic contaminant in drinking water. It has been linked to cancer and other health hazards. Yet peer review questions about its cancer risk caused the EPA to pull its IRIS assessment in 1989. The EPA did not begin a new assessment until 1998 and this is not expected to be completed before 2010 at the earliest, a lag of 21 years at least.

The problems with IRIS aren’t just confined to the glacial pace at which it comes up with risk assessments for new chemicals but extends to those already in the system. As far back as 2003, the EPA thought that the data on 287 of the 540 chemicals in IRIS were out of date and that their risk assessments needed to be reviewed. In the intervening years, this number can only have grown.

There are several reasons why IRIS has not been able to keep up: funding, staff, the increasing complexity of doing the assessments, etc. but the real culprit is once again Bush’s OMB. It conducts not one but two reviews of the assessments. It seeks input from departments and agencies (such as DOD, DOE, and NASA) that might be affected by the assessments and that have an interest in watering them down and delaying them. The OMB reviews are not transparent. The input is treated as internal Executive Branch communications and is not made public. All of this happens before the assessment is let out for peer review. Worse the current leadership at the EPA wants to formalize this interference and give other agencies and departments even greater control over IRIS. With millions of chemicals in use in our society, it would be nice to know what the best guess health risks are of a handful of the more important ones, but as always happens in the Bush Administration anything that smacks of regulation is seen as something to be minimized, neutralized, or eliminated.

In fact, on April 10, 2008 EPA released its new guidelines for IRIS effective immediately. A GAO report of May 21, 2008 estimates that the EPA’s “streamlined” process will take 6-8 years to complete for each chemical and be out of date by the time it is finished.

On October 3, 2008, the EPA announced it would not set a standard for perchlorate in water because it did not pose a health risk as defined under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Perchlorate interferes with the uptake of iodine by the thyroid and has been linked to health problems in pregnant women and newborns. The Pentagon has resisted regulation of perchlorate because it is used in solid rocket fuels. The chemical occurs in the drinking water of about 16 million Americans.

On July 10, 2007, Richard Carmona Surgeon General from 2002 to 2006 testified that he had been muzzled by Bush political appointees and prevented from discussing stem cell research, emergency contraception, prison healthcare, mental health issues, and the effectiveness of abstinence only programs. He related that a report on the health effects of secondhand tobacco smoke was delayed for years and its conclusions weakened.

A 2006 report on poverty and world health has still not been released as of July 2007 because of the efforts of William R. Steiger the 37 year old head of the Office of Global Health Affairs at Health and Human Services and godson of the elder Bush. Steiger has held the post since 2001 although he has no background in health or medical issues. Steiger criticized inaccuracies and lack of analysis in the report which was pre-read and well received by healthcare professionals. In fact, Steiger’s real gripe was that the report did not promote Bush health policies. This is not the first time that Steiger has engaged in such behavior. In 2004, at the behest of food manufacturers and sugar producers, he sought changes in a health report on obesity.

On May 14, 2008, Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne placed the polar bear on the endangered species list but said that it would be wholly inappropriate to use this as an argument to reduce greenhouse gases or restrict oil and gas exploration and development in areas where they occur.