Kyla Bennett, a former EPA scientist who now works with the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said the emails provide more evidence that the EPA needs an overhaul and that it is steeped in an “industry-beholden culture” that persists regardless of which party is in office.
It has become “standard operating procedure” for the agency to “dismiss the studies that demonstrate the chemicals are dangerous; override the scientists who are trying to do the risk analysis properly; alter the math they use to come up with risk factors; and, if all else fails, they will invoke some unwritten policy to amend the decision in favor of industry,” Bennett said.