Green Options » GAO

Congressional Watchdog Calls for Reform of EPA Toxics Policy

Derek Markham — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 22:50:39 +0000

The General Accountability Office (GAO) adds the EPA’s Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), to its 2009 High Risk list, saying that the EPA “lacks adequate scientific information on the toxicity of many chemicals that may be found in the environment”.

The GAO recommends that the Obama administration place a high priority on upgrading the policies for assessment and control of toxic chemicals.

“EPA’s inadequate progress in assessing toxic chemicals significantly limits the agency’s ability to fulfill its mission of protecting human health and the environment.” - GAO

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EPA Toxic Chemical Testing Found to Be “High Risk”

Amanda Peterka — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 22:41:46 +0000

Every two years, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) updates its record of federal government operations deemed to be “high risk,” and this year EPA’s testing of toxic chemicals was added to the blacklist, among the governing of financial institutions (no big surprise there) and FDA’s management of medical products, reports ENN. These groups are, according to the GAO, at “high risk for waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement or in need of broad-based transformation,” and bring the total of the list up to 30 government groups.

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EPA Toxic Chemical Testing is Flawed and Kept Out of Election

Amanda Peterka — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 14:49:02 +0000

The EPA’s system for deciding whether or not some chemicals we use on an everyday basis are toxic and can cause cancer is severely flawed, and the agency isn’t really doing anything about it. It’s gone buried under all the talk about the election and the environment - neither of the candidates making any fuss about these EPA procedures.

Although the media reported on it earlier this year, on Sept. 18 the Government Accountability Office made public a March report finding a number of alarming shortcomings in the EPA’s system - the only nationwide system the United States uses to assess household chemicals. And it’s a system that’s already behind that of the European Union, which lists more chemicals as dangerous - meaning we may be putting on makeup and using household products made of substances banned for their toxicity by our counterparts in Europe. So, this report has some grave implications that go beyond merely pointing out flaws in the EPA.

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GAO: EPA Fails to Control Export of Hazardous E-Waste to Third World

Jennifer Lance — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 03:33:57 +0000

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a scathing critique of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today for failing to control the export of toxic e-waste to third world countries. Discarded computers, televisions, cellphones, etc. contain hazardous heavy metals such as lead, mercury and cadmium which are dismantled under unsafe conditions in other countries where they enter into the air and water. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard L. Berman (D-Calif.), who commissioned the report, stated,”It’s a really inadequate situation that we’ve allowed to continue. We have a regulation where, as far as I can tell, there’s no effort to enforce it.”

Via: Truthout

Image: United Nations University

The Lindberg Report Podcast: Yucca Mountain: The Nevada Case, Part One

Max Lindberg — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 07:44:42 +0000

I’ve been going on for some time now about the nuclear industry, the possibility of more nuclear power stations going online, and especially what to do with radioactive waste that’s been piling up for 50 years.

The answer to the waste situation was supposed to have been Yucca Mountain, a remote natural structure some 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada. Since it’s inception nearly 25 years ago, Nevadans have fought creation of a long-term storage facility in their back yard.

I wanted to know more about Nevada’s opposition to the Yucca Mountain project, so I picked up the phone and talked with Robert Loux, Executive Director of the Agency for Nuclear Projects in Nevada. He’s been going head-to-head with the DOE and other agencies for a long time, and has some interesting things to say about the project and the DOE.

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