Does Anyone Really Trust the EPA?

According to a press release from August 1, 2005, the organization Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) has finally gotten its hands on a 2003 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) internal survey.

Overall, the survey of EPA employees cites "lack of trust, communication and shared vision" within the agency. One scientist wrote, "Despite email and the like, there is no real communication in the organization and no consistent mechanism to share knowledge." While another said, "A complete lack of communication exists, leading to the strong distrust that is present today." This deficient internal cohesion could be why the EPA is so completely useless when it comes to protecting the environment!

The EPA's Research and Development Office, which consists of three laboratories, four national centers and two offices and employs about 2,000 scientists, puts out this survey every two years to gauge the agency’s "organizational climate."

It’s obvious that the agency wasn’t too happy with the results of the 2003 survey, as PEER had to sue the EPA under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain them. Although the survey, which had a 66% response rate, showed that overall morale remained positive, it also revealed that there are serious doubts as to the "competence" and "trustworthiness" of the agency’s leadership. In fact, employees find those higher up in the chain of command less trustworthy, with only 23% of scientists expressing trust in their laboratory managers.

About 30% of the survey’s respondents believed that their laboratory managers addressed "challenging situations competently," and only 56% were optimistic about the Office of Research and Development’s future. That means that nearly half of ORD's employees must see the futility of their research and their discoveries. Could this have anything to do with the current anti-environment stance within the Bush Administration? PEER believes there is a connection.

The organization’s Director Rebecca Roose noted that during Bush’s administrations, "the EPA has been plagued by reports of political suppression of scientific results on issues ranging from global warming to asbestos to mercury regulation." She also claimed that the EPA "has chosen to mask problems by initiating and aggressive PR campaign."

Other Departments within the agency even believe that the EPA is becoming more and more dysfunctional. The Agency’s Science Advisory Board claimed in an April 2005 draft report that the EPA is falling behind on important issues and "is no longer funding a credible public health research program."

With all the politicizing of science going on now-a-days, it’s not hard to understand why scientists feel like their research doesn’t matter. It’s hard to trust the boss when he or she can just ignore his staff’s findings because they don’t appeal congress or the president. With the blockage of stem cell research, doctored reports on global warming and America’s reluctance to look into alternate forms of energy, every kind of scientist, from physicist to botanist, is being marginalized because it doesn’t suit a political or big business agenda. This survey goes to show that the American Scientific community is feeling the repercussions of said politicization and that our health and our environment will be paying the price.