June 29, 1998
Letters to the Editor
The Washington Times
3600 New York Ave., N.E.
Washington, D.C. 20002Dear Editor:
This is an open letter asking my colleagues at the Environmental Protection Agency here in Washington to lighten up. An incident recently occurred in which EPA employees acted against other Agency employees, including me, who expressed politically conservative views that challenged an official EPA policy. Relax people! Honest dissent does not undermine the public welfare.
The incident relates to my association with an informal group of about a dozen EPA employees who for the past six years have been meeting regularly to discuss environmental issues. We, somewhat pretentiously, call ourselves the Edmund Burke Society, after the eighteenth century British statesman who is considered the father of modern political conservatism.
The Society asks people to speak at EPA who would not normally be invited by the Agency because they express views contrary to official beliefs. Our lectures are attended by many EPA employees who do not belong to the Society. We have, for example, invited Dr. Bruce Ames, a distinguished geneticist, who has criticized the use of laboratory animal studies to create unwarranted fear that small amounts of synthetic chemicals can actually cause cancer. The Honorable Amos Midzi, Ambassador to the U.S. from Zimbabwe, explained to a small EPA audience that elephants in his country are not endangered and that the worldwide ban on ivory, supported by the U.S., hurts rather than helps to protect elephants. We also invited then Judge, now Supreme Court Justice, Stephen Breyer to speak about his book that was critical of environmental policies that waste resources protecting against very small risks.
Last March, the members of the Society decided to use their personal time to submit comments, as private citizens, on an EPA regulation. We clearly stated we were not speaking for the Agency and had prepared the comments on our own time. The regulation would require local agencies that supply drinking water to the public to include in their bills information on the levels of contaminants in the water. This information is referred to as a "Consumer Confidence Report."
We consider the reports a laudable idea, but expressed concern that such reports, if not properly explained, could unduly frighten people about their water. We briefly explained that the laboratory animal studies which EPA uses to evaluate the potential for tiny amounts of contaminants to cause cancer may be appropriate for issuing regulations, but do not show that actual cancer cases have occurred or will occur. Indeed, there are no documented cases of cancer caused by public drinking water. We argued that the public should be informed of this. I signed the cover letter conveying the comments.
Edmund Burke Society activities are largely ignored by most EPA employees. While we take ideas seriously, we are almost exclusively a discussion group and pose no harm to the prevailing EPA ideology.
With this history, I was stunned when a few days after we submitted the comments on the Consumer Confidence Report regulation I was visited by an Office of General Counsel colleague who is the senior Agency ethics attorney. He informed me that other Agency lawyers had asked him for an opinion on whether our submission of the comments violated any law or regulation. While he told me there was no violation, he did suggest I submit a new cover letter without my EPA work address.
I asked if he could tell me who asked for this investigation. He said he could, but asked whether I really wanted to know. In the interests of not creating any animosity, I decided to remain blissfully ignorant.
It appears, however, that some EPA employees believe it is reprehensible for other employees to disagree publicly with Agency policy. I discovered the extent of this view when, just last week, another member of the Society asked me for a copy of the comments. Since I had not kept one, I went to get it from the public file. Much to my surprise I found that the comments had been removed from the public file approximately three months earlier without my consent or knowledge.
Assuming this was an honest mistake, I asked three Agency employees -- including the Office of General Counsel supervising attorney who had, apparently, first complained -- to return the comments immediately. In each case, I was refused in no uncertain terms. I was also accused of harassing the clerk in charge of the public file.
In frustration, I bypassed the chain of command and went directly to the Deputy General Counsel. He seemed embarrassed by the situation and had the comments returned to the public file. Even after he had supposedly resolved the issue, I found it difficult to convince those same Agency employees to take appropriate action. Another supervising attorney had to intervene.
When I first came to EPA about twenty years ago, no one would have been harassed or treated unfairly when they expressed opinions that differed from the prevailing Agency view. Indeed, I abhorred conservative views when I first came to EPA but had every expectation that, as I began to see things differently, my colleagues would be willing to hear me out. Was I wrong! EPA career employees have over the years become much more ideologically intolerant and "politically correct."
The members of the Edmund Burke Society are, frankly, saddened and dismayed that anyone had to go to such lengths to exercise basic rights of free expression and sincerely hope this will not be repeated in the future.
Sincerely,
Alan Carpien
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