Washington -- A veteran U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientist has charged that EPA allows its enthusiasm for regulations to override its interest in sound science. He is becoming an influential adviser to some of the agency's most vociferous critics in Congress.
David Lewis, a microbiologist at EPA research laboratory in Athens, meets regularly with Republican leaders in the House of Representatives and has been "nominated" by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi for membership on an invitation-only group of Republican boosters.
Despite EPA resistance, he may soon become a temporary member of the personal staff of Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) who is viewed by environmentalists as one of Congress's most outspoken opponents of environmental regulation.
And top EPA officials face possible congressional hearings in a few weeks over reaction to a newspaper column Lewis wrote last year that ridiculed the agency for what Lewis pictured as a useless interest in the sexual practices of aquatic insects.
Lewis says his goal is in elevating science to a more influential role over EPA decisions.
"If we don't find a way to get science ahead of politics at EPA, the environment will suffer," Lewis says. "What the public doesn't understand is that regulating with poor science puts the environment at risk."
Lewis spelled out these views in greater detail in a 1995 article he wrote for the British scientific journal Nature, and an op-ed column he published last year in the Athens Banner-Herald.
The agency's reaction to the two articles got it into an extended legal fight with Lewis and appears to have opened doors for him to the offices of House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Pombo and others.
In the newspaper column, Lewis criticized EPA plans to fine the town of Washington, Ga., $50,000 a day for failing to move as quickly as the agency wanted it to on efforts to clean up municipal wastewater.
Lewis wrote that the threatened fine was based on a test which indicated that water fleas did not reproduce as rapidly in the town's wastewater as they ordinarily do in pure water, an indication the wastewater contained pollutants. EPA has backed off of the fine.
"Basically, EPA is concerned that water fleas don't like making love in the city's wastewater," he wrote. The column was preceded by an editor's note identifying Lewis as a research scientist at the Athens EPA lab, and a member of the University of Georgia graduate faculty.
After reading the article, officials who head scientific research at EPA directed an agency ethics officer to review them to determine whether Lewis had violated ethics rules dealing with outside activities by government employees.
Lewis promptly filed a whistle-blower's complaint with the Department of Labor, accusing EPA of discriminating against him and trying to intimidate him.
Because of the complaint, several EPA officials were required to give depositions. Robert Huggett, then head of the EPA science office, testified that he thought Lewis's comment about "the sex life of water fleas was a rather sophomoric thing for a scientist to say" but said he never intended to discipline Lewis for writing the article.
However, the Labor Department ruled that EPA had discriminated against Lewis because other writings on his part, which did not criticize the agency, had resulted in no such concern about ethics.
EPA has appealed this ruling and is awaiting a decision on the appeal.
Meanwhile, the agency turned down a request from Pombo that Lewis be temporarily detailed to his congressional office to advise him on environmental matters.
"Pombo is seen as one of the most outspoken opponents of environmental regulation even among House Republicans," said Greg Whetstone, legislative affairs director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. "The guy is way out there."
Members of Congress like to have agency employees detailed to their staffs because this gives them an additional worker whom they do not have to pay from their office budgets.
In addition to Rep. David McIntosh, Pombo and Gingrich, Lewis has enlisted the support of Reps. John Linder and Charles Norwood, both of Georgia.
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