Update (December 14, 2017): Michael Dourson has withdrawn his nomination to head the EPA’s division of chemical safety. Read the statement from UCS President Ken Kimmell, Dourson’s Withdrawal a Victory for Science, Health.
When it comes to conflicts of interest, few nominations can top that of Michael Dourson to lead the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. Time after time, Dourson has worked for industries and against the public interest, actively downplaying the risks of a series of chemicals and pushing for less stringent policies that threaten our safety.
In short, Dourson pushes counterfeit science, is unfit to protect us from dangerous chemicals, and is a toxic choice for our health and safety.
A litany of toxic decisions
Consider the 2014 Freedom Industries chemical spill into the Elk River in Charleston, West Virginia, which contaminated drinking water supplies for 300,000 people with MCHM and PPH—two chemicals used to clean coal.
After the spill, Dourson’s company, TERA, was hired by the state to put together a health effects panel; Dourson was the chair. He did not disclose the fact, however, that he had been hired to work for the very same companies that manufactured those chemicals, a fact that only later came out while he was being questioned by a reporter.
Dourson was also involved in helping set West Virginia’s “safe” level in drinking water for a chemical used to manufacture Teflon (Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), or “C8”). It was 2,000 times higher than the standard set by the EPA.
In 2015, Dourson provided testimony for DuPont in the case of a woman who alleged that her kidney cancer was linked to drinking PFOA-contaminated water from the company’s Parkersburg, WV plant. Just this year, DuPont settled with plaintiffs from the Ohio Valley who had been exposed to PFOA from the same plant for $670 million after an independent C8 Science Panel made up of independent epidemiologists found “probable links” between PFOA and kidney and testicular cancer, as well as high blood pressure, thyroid disease, and pregnancy-induced hypertension.
From 2007 to 2014, Dourson and TERA also worked closely with Michael Honeycutt and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to loosen two-thirds of the already weak protections for 45 different chemicals.
The list of toxic decisions made by Dourson and his team goes on and clearly makes him an unacceptable choice for a leadership role at the agency charged with protecting public health and the environment.
A worst-case choice
During Dourson’s hearing before the Senate Committion on Environment and Public Works (EPW), his answers to questions about recusing himself from decisions regarding former chemicals on which TERA has worked closely with industry were cagey at best. It appears that because much of his work was through the University of Cincinnati, he will not be expected to recuse himself from decisions about chemicals that his research team was paid by industry to assess in the past. His ethics agreement confirms this. So much for the Trump administration’s draining of the swamp.
If Dourson is confirmed, I have no doubt that his appointment will be repeatedly cited as a worst-case-scenario of the revolving door between industry representatives and the government.
His work over the past few decades has been destructive enough, even from a position with little power to help the chemical industry directly skirt tough regulations. While Dourson has apparently already been working at the agency as “adviser to the Administrator,” putting him in charge of the office that is supposed to protect the public from toxins would be a grave mistake with national ramifications.
In the coming years, Dourson’s office will be making decisions about safety thresholds and key regulatory actions on chlorpyrifos, neonicotinoids, flame retardants, asbestos, and the other priority chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act. There is no room for error, and unfortunately, error is likely with someone like Dourson in charge.
We join with many other members of the scientific community to oppose Michael Dourson for Assistant Administrator of OCSPP and to ask senators to vote no in upcoming committee and confirmation votes.
Last updated October 19, 4:07 PM EDT.