"EPA leaders are pushing forward with an overhaul of the way the agency evaluates the dangers of environmental contaminants after a brief consultation with outside scientists — a process that environmentalists claim was rushed and could be misused.
Even the chemical industry, which is broadly supportive of the deregulatory fervor of the Trump administration's EPA, fears the agency may be attempting to do too much too soon in its bid to reconsider a set of crucial but complicated protocols.
At issue is EPA's effort to update its cancer and noncancer risk assessment guidelines. They help EPA staff gauge and minimize the dangers posed by chemicals, pollutants, climate change and other threats to human health and the environment.
EPA's cancer testing protocols were most recently updated in 2005 after more than a dozen years of review. But the agency has struggled for decades to create unified guidance for evaluating noncancer risks."
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