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In light of FDA official's resignation & draft rules on air pollution, house dems aks president not to put politics before science
WASHINGTON, D.C. – After news reports today about the resignation of Food and Drug Administration Assistant Commissioner Susan Wood and about draft Bush Administration regulations that would relax air quality standards for power plants, a group of House and Senate Democrats are sending the following letter to President Bush this afternoon requesting that he order all political appointees in his Administration never to put politics before science.
The letter was circulated by Rep. George Miller (D-CA) and signed by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Rush Holt (D-NJ).
President George W. Bush
The White House
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. President:
Today, two news accounts are again raising questions about whether your Administration places a higher value on politics than it does on scientific evidence when making decisions that affect public health, the environment, or other areas of public policy. We are writing to request that you issue to your entire Administration a clear directive that politics must never get in the way of sound scientific decision-making.
Today, we learned from the Associated Press that Susan Wood, the Assistant Commissioner for Women’s Health at the Food and Drug Administration, has resigned her long-held position because of an announcement last week by the FDA that the agency plans to indefinitely postpone a decision to make emergency contraception available over-the-counter.
This decision, as Dr. Wood wrote today in an email message to colleagues that later was made public, will have the effect of greatly limiting a woman’s ability to obtain emergency contraception. Sadly, this decision could increase unwanted pregnancies and abortions among American women, and it represents a clear triumph of politics over sound, deliberative policymaking.
We also learned today from an article in this morning’s Washington Post that your Administration has prepared draft regulations that would allow both old and modern power plants to pollute more, not less. These anti-community, pro-industry regulations would, if approved, have harmful implications for public health and air quality.
Eric Schaeffer, who resigned in 2002 from his position as head of the Office of Regulatory Enforcement at the Environmental Protection Agency, told the Washington Post that under these new rules, older power plants would “never” reach compliance with existing air quality laws.
We have seen numerous other documented cases of political considerations trumping scientific determinations during your Administration. While you and your spokespeople have offered public assurances that the Administration does not place politics over science, the record indicates that the opposite is often true. In many cases, political decisions have prompted the resignations – whether in protest or frustration – of agency scientists and senior policymakers, robbing the American people of these public servants’ important contributions.
It is time, once and for all, to make clear to every political appointee in your Administration that there will be consequences for overruling scientific determinations for political reasons. We request that you issue a clear directive in this regard to every agency and department in your Administration.
Sincerely,
GEORGE MILLER
Member of Congress
NANCY PELOSI
House Minority Leader
ROSA DeLAURO
Member of Congress
RUSH HOLT
Member of Congress
corruption
energyandenvironment
natural resources
Posted by Intern, CA07 at 09:07PM | Comments ()
Rep. Miller urges Bush to meet with Gold Star mom
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. George Miller (D-CA), an outspoken critic of the President’s handling of the war in Iraq, today joined 37 of his House Democratic colleagues in urging the President to meet with Cindy Sheehan, whose 24-year-old son Casey was killed in Iraq last year.
Sheehan, who lives in Vacaville, California, in Miller’s congressional district, has requested the meeting with President Bush to discuss the Iraq war. While Sheehan awaits a response to her request, she is camping outside the President’s Crawford, Texas ranch, where he is vacationing during the month of August. Sheehan began her vigil on August 6 and has pledged to remain outside the ranch for the duration of the President’s vacation if necessary.
“All Cindy Sheehan wants to know is why her son had to die in Iraq,” said Miller, the chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee. “Given that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a lot of Americans are asking the same question. As a mother who has lost a child, Cindy Sheehan deserves an answer to that question – a real answer, not the Administration’s boilerplate nonsense.”
Miller was among 38 members of Congress to sign a letter to the President circulated by Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D-NY), the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. The letter asks the President to agree to Sheehan’s request for a meeting, and to ensure that her rights and the rights of other protesters are respected for as long as they remain outside the ranch.
“President Bush told the country that we were sending young men and women into harm’s way because Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed a grave threat to our national security. That turned out not to be true. The President owes Cindy Sheehan and all Americans an explanation,” said Miller.
Spc. Casey Sheehan was serving in Iraq with the Army’s First Battalion when he was killed in Sadr City on April 4, 2004.
Posted by Intern, CA07 at 09:22PM | Comments ()
