Scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency were passed over for promotions, received lower performance evaluations and got reassigned to other parts of the agency — all over disagreements about chemical safety.

The EPA’s inspector general office, in a string of partially redacted reports, found managers in the EPA’s New Chemicals Division, part of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, retaliated against employees who raised concerns about chemicals being approved for commercial release.

Kyla Bennett, the director of science policy for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), said the EPA employees who faced retaliation worked as chemists and toxicologists.

“They would do these risk assessments on new chemicals, and they’d say, ‘OK, we found that this one causes cancer,’ for example. And the managers would say, ‘No, no, we don’t want to say that,’ and they’d delete the cancer designation. And it was happening over and over and over, and then they started getting retaliated against when they were pushing back,” Bennett said.

The watchdog office received hotline complaints from five EPA scientists, and substantiated the retaliation claims of three employees — including one case of whistleblower retaliation.

PEER filed the hotline complaints to the EPA IG’s office on behalf of these employees.

“Three personnel actions occurred within a period of time such that a reasonable person could conclude that differing scientific opinions or protected activities were contributing factors,” the IG reports state.

The EPA IG’s office found that EPA employees involved in these disagreements received lower performance evaluations, reassignment to a different division or were not selected for open positions or detail assignments.

The IG’s office found these cases of retaliation violated the EPA’s scientific integrity policy.

Unnamed EPA officials disagreed with the IG’s findings.

Officials told the IG’s office that an EPA scientist was not penalized for their scientific disagreements, “but instead assessed overall performance against various metrics, including ability to meet programmatic deadlines for new-chemical assessments.”

Officials also told the IG’s office that “performance ratings are not static and that employees are not entitled to the same rating they received in a previous year.”

EPA Inspector General Sean O’Donnell told members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce last month that the “EPA has continued to resist the OIG’s important oversight role in protecting scientific integrity at the EPA.”

“These investigations underscore the indispensable role of the OIG in protecting scientific integrity at the EPA as the only independent resource in the agency empowered to investigate these matters without fear of interference,” O’Donnell told lawmakers. “Yet the EPA continues to resist revising coordination procedures between the IG and its scientific integrity program to require the prompt reporting to the OIG of political interference by senior agency officials and other misconduct.”

While the employees’ hotline complaints described retaliatory actions between 2019 and 2022, O’Donnell told lawmakers that his office “did not substantiate any allegations of direct retaliation after 2020.”

‘Pushing us like animals in a farm’

Under the Toxic Substances Control Act, last amended in 2016, EPA employees working in the New Chemicals Division must conduct a full assessment for every new chemical within a 90-day deadline.

However, a human health assessor at EPA told the IG’s office that it was “somewhat impossible” to fully assess the safety of a new chemical within that timeframe.

“The EPA has 90 days to say, ‘This presents an unreasonable risk, and it can’t go to market,’ or, ‘You’re OK if you put these protection measures in,’ or ‘No problem,’” Bennett said.

If new chemical assessments are not completed within the statutory 90-day deadline, they become a part of a backlog.

EPA management told the IG’s office that there had always been pressure to clear the backlog, but as the backlog grew, so did the political pressure to eliminate it.

Meanwhile, scientific disagreements between assessors and Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT) management led to delays.

On April 30, 2020, the OPPT deputy director sent a message calling human health assessors the “worst ‘conservationist[s],” and complained that they were “trying to indict every chemical.”

An unnamed individual told the IG’s office that disagreeing or delaying the resolution of backlogged assessments could get an employee labeled as “problematic” by management.

EPA officials told the IG’s office that pressure from agency leadership to eliminate the backlog was “intense,” and described the pressure as “pushing us like animals in a farm.”

One official told the IG’s office that a political appointee complained about specific human health assessors being “slow” and asked their supervisors to be more involved in their work.

Agency leadership also characterized these assessors as too “conservative” in their approach.

The IG’s office, however, found that these remarks generally didn’t rise to the level of retaliation.

“The Merit Systems Protection Board has consistently held that a feeling of being unfairly criticized or difficult or unpleasant working conditions are generally not so intolerable as to compel a reasonable person to resign and thus are not personnel actions,” the reports state.

EPA officials told the IG’s office that the assessment completion timeline and the backlog size were not entirely in the assessors’ control.

Companies that submit new chemicals for assessment, for example, play a large role in the new-chemicals assessment process.

Bennett said EPA assessors are allowed to “pause the clock,” if they need more information from companies to assess their chemicals— but that this was “frowned upon.”

A ‘bipartisan problem’

“The culture of this division is such that they are rewarded for getting those reviews out in 90 days to help industry,” she said.

Before a final regulatory decision is made on a new chemical, companies also have an opportunity to dispute the assessment or provide additional information.

If a company doesn’t agree with an initial assessment of its chemical, it can continue to submit more information for the EPA to consider.

EPA officials told the IG’s office that this “never-ending rework cycle” often extends the timeline beyond the statutory 90-day deadline.

An EPA official told the IG’s office that an average case goes through two or three back-and-forth cycles of rework.

An agency official also stated that identifying fewer hazards or determining that a chemical was less hazardous led to a quicker overall assessment process.

Bennett said three EPA managers “that were the crux of the problem” have since left the agency, but said these problems persist.

“There are others there that are still horrific and who are still deleting hazards or ordering these employees to delete hazards and siding with industry, and it’s really despicable,” she said.

Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the environment, manufacturing and critical materials subcommittee, said during last month’s hearing that EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety has grown its workforce under the Biden administration — including hiring a science policy advisor.

“I will not suggest that every issue has been fully solved. But it is clear that this administration is indeed committed to making improvements and safeguarding scientific integrity,” Tonko said.

The EPA published guidance on expressing and resolving scientific opinions in October 2020.

President Joe Biden issued a memorandum on restoring trust in government through scientific integrity and evidence-based policymaking during his first week in office.

The White House recently announced that 19 agencies have released updated or new scientific integrity policies under the Biden administration.

However, Bennett said “no substantive change” have been made, and that the problems persist across multiple administrations.

“This is a bipartisan issue. It’s a bipartisan problem,” he said.

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