Last March GAO concluded the system the EPA uses to assess the human health risks of 540 chemicals was at serious risk of becoming obsolete, but more recently GAO said changes made since then have further limited the credibility and timeliness of the EPA’s assessments of toxic chemicals, GAO told a House oversight and investigations panel recently.
The EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System contains the agency’s scientific position on the potential health effects of chemicals and is critical to the agency’s capacity to support scientifically sound environmental decisions, policies, and regulations, according to GAO-08-1168T.
It said the agency has failed to complete timely, credible assessments or decrease its backlog of ongoing assessments. A total of 4 were completed in fiscal 2006 and 2007.
Further, assessment process changes the EPA has made recently as well as other changes it is considering would further reduce the credibility and timeliness of IRIS assessments, GAO said.
It also concluded the following:
EPA’s efforts to finalize assessments have been thwarted by a combination of factors, including two new OMB-required reviews of IRIS assessments by OMB and other federal agencies and by EPA management decisions, such as delaying some assessments to await new research.
The two new OMB-interagency reviews of draft assessments involve other federal agencies in EPA’s IRIS assessment process in a manner that limits the credibility of IRIS assessments and hinders EPA’s ability to manage them.
According to GAO, OMB and interagency reviews lack transparency. It also noted that OMB required EPA to terminate five assessments EPA had initiated to help it implement the Clean Air Act.
