Chamber Renews Call for EPA to Correct Database Errors

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The United States Chamber of Commerce today called on the

Environmental Protection Agency to correct inconsistencies in chemical properties listings in its databases and models. Under the Data Quality Act, EPA must ensure and maximize the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of data that it disseminates and uses in determining

appropriate cleanup of contaminated soil and water.

"The chemical property data errors in EPA's databases and models could cost American

businesses billions of dollars a year," said William Kovacs, Chamber vice president of environmental affairs. "This is bad government, bad for American businesses, and bad for our economy."

EPA publicly disseminates or recommends the use of several important, large chemical property databases and models that contain seriously flawed, erroneous data, according to the Chamber. The Chamber documented in a Request for Correction last Fall that use of such erroneous information leads, for example, to widely varying, unreliable, and ambiguous determinations of human health risk impacts and contaminant cleanup goals, such as for removing PCBs in sediment. The Chamber submitted another Request for Reconsideration that includes a detailed scientific analysis of the issue by Cambridge Environmental Inc., showing serious flaws in EPA's peer review of data quality.

"There is no doubt the EPA has failed to satisfy the mandate of the Data Quality Act," Kovacs said. "We are renewing our call for the agency to correct such problems and to create more certainty in information used to regulate the private sector."

The Chamber asks in its Request for Reconsideration that EPA address the concerns raised through a coordinated intergovernmental, multi-agency effort because such data are used by many government agencies in addition to EPA. The intergovernmental effort should include the involvement of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is a recognized world leader in the development of reliable data.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the world's largest business federation representing more than three million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, and region.

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