OpenMarket: Angela Logomasini

Last week was a bad one for farmers. Two legal decisions were released that promise to undermine access to valuable agrochemicals that farmers need to produce a safe and affordable food supply. Both of these decisions came about thanks to a series of lies, misinformation, and junk science peddled by environmental activists and trial lawyers.

Big government is crushing small business owners around the nation, punishing decades of hard work and job creation. Too few people speak up as the burdens of the regulatory and nanny states slam down upon them, but every now and then I hear from someone in trouble. 

In “Free to Prosper: A Pro-Growth Agenda for the 115th Congress,” CEI recommended that Congress hold oversight hearings regarding the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), specifically the Commission’s consideration of an activist petition calling on the agency to ban an entire class of flame retardants. We had already pointed out in a study why banning an entire class of chemicals is contrary to sound science and common sense—and is potentially dangerous, because it contributes to fire risks. The CPSC voted to proceed with the rulemaking last October, but...

In an April 24 blog post, I detailed why a recent National Academies of Sciences review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Integrated Risk Information System—a research program that conducts chemical risk assessments—should be disregarded. Basically, NAS did nothing more than pat EPA on the back for having finally implemented some of NAS’s recommended procedural reforms that the agency should have put in place nearly a decade ago. 

“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again” could be the motto of one of the key research programs at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency known as the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS). EPA staff have been working for nearly a decade to improve the scientific process of this program, but have yet to get it right. 

Obama administration holdovers at the Environmental Protection Agency are doing their best undermine efforts to drain EPA’s bureaucratic swamp. And thus far, unfortunately, they’re succeeding. A recent example is Congress’s failure to cut, or even reduce, funding of one of EPA’s controversial research programs known as the Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS.

Environmental activists want you to “take action for our planet and nature” by sitting in the dark for an hour on March 24th. But we at the Competitive Enterprise Institute would rather keep the lights on and celebrate Human Achievement Hour, because we recognize that living well is not a crime. In fact, the human ingenuity that brought us light has proved not only good for people; it benefits nature and its creatures as well.

As European Union risk assessments purportedly “confirm” that pesticides threaten honeybees and lawmakers quickly clamor for pesticide bans, the stark reality is that so far in this process, political concerns have been trumping science. In fact, politics has prevented scientists from considering the bigger picture, and, as a result, both bees and the world’s food supply will suffer. 

Recently, Project Veritas released a series of undercover videos that reveal how New York Times journalists are more interested in smearing the Trump administration than in reporting objective news. But you don’t need to go undercover to see examples of such unfair and biased New York Times reporting. A recent example is Eric Lipton’s article related to Nancy Beck, whom Trump selected to head up the chemical office at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

According to Lipton’s article, Beck’s appointment is a threat to public health and safety because she worked for the chemical industry’s trade association, the American Chemistry Council. The headline subtitle says it all: