(Washington, DC) House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Ranking Member Frank Lucas praised a decision by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to have its draft formaldehyde assessment reviewed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
The EPA’s decision follows an agency commitment resulting from two oversight letters and briefing requests sent by Lucas raising concerns with EPA’s formaldehyde risk assessments conducted under the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS). For more than a decade, the IRIS program has come under fire from Congress and independent reviewers like the National Academies for its inconsistent process, lack of transparency, and failure to complete assessments in a timely fashion.
“Businesses and consumers rely on accurate and timely chemical assessments from the EPA,” Lucas said. “The formaldehyde IRIS assessment has been plagued with problems for more than a decade and faced serious criticisms about its inconsistency, lack of transparency, and delays. The National Academies has done great work evaluating EPA’s work and recommending improvements so I’m pleased that they will be reviewing updates to the formaldehyde assessment. I’m hopeful this will lead to this assessment using the best available, up to date science, and will serve as a good example of the value of strong Congressional oversight.”
Read more:
Lucas Requests Oversight of EPA’s Formaldehyde Assessment Process