When industry associations and regulators lose faith in one another’s intentions, a certain kind of conflict arises. It takes time for it to happen. Contested filings, conflicting scientific analyses, backchannel pressure, and public remarks that resemble legal briefs rather than civic engagement are some of the ways it builds up. The battle over ethylene oxide rulemaking turned into one of those slow-burning disputes, and the harm to the working relationship was evident by the time federal agencies officially retaliated.
The gas ethylene oxide has no color. At hazardous concentrations, it is odorless. The sterilization facilities that make it have chain-link fences that prevent you from seeing it drifting past them. However, the EPA’s own 2016 Integrated Risk Information System assessment, which involved independent peer review and took almost ten years to complete, found that people who are continuously exposed to it face about thirty times more cancer cases than the agency had previously estimated. That number increases to fifty times for those who have been exposed since birth. Black, Latino, Indigenous, and low-income communities typically absorb the most exposure. Seldom does that section appear in the press release.
The evaluation was followed by a slow regulatory reaction. The industry’s attempts to contest the underlying science had a significant influence on the protracted rulemaking process. Together with Huntsman Petrochemical and the American Chemistry Council, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality petitioned the EPA, claiming that the agency’s own scientific findings were faulty. They suggested a different analysis, which produced a cancer risk estimate that was about 2,000 times less protective than what the EPA had determined. In the end, the EPA responded sharply, rejecting the Texas analysis because its methods were thought to be opaque and its findings to be at odds with the best available science.
It’s important to consider how the Texas Commission arrived at its figures. Women were completely excluded from their analysis, which meant that breast cancer as an endpoint and all lymphoid cancers in women were not included. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health study, which included over 19,000 workers, was the same dataset that the EPA used. identical data. drastically different conclusions. The head of the Commission’s toxicology division was a former petrochemical lobbyist. The agency fought to have the documents supporting its own analysis made public for years in court. These are not insignificant procedural notes.
There is a history to this pattern. Scientists have been under pressure from industry groups to reinterpret data to support preconceived conclusions in a number of regulatory battles. It’s a particular kind of tactic that involves selective emphasis, the exclusion of inconvenient findings, and the creation of uncertainty that appears scientific rather than outright fabrication. Here, the EPA acknowledged it and made it clear. Such directness from a federal agency is significant and has implications for the relationship between regulators and the industries they regulate.
This episode seems to have revealed something that is frequently hidden. For the OSHA-industry relationship to function at its best, both parties must acknowledge the truth of the science. During this battle, that common base was weakened. It is more difficult to resume regular negotiation when one side quietly excludes half of the population from their risk models while spending years contesting the validity of federal scientists. Although it wasn’t a resolution, the EPA’s decision to support its own research was noteworthy. A line was drawn.
The rulemaking debate was never truly abstract to the communities residing close to these facilities. While the filing deadlines were being contested, the air outside those plants continued to circulate through people’s lungs.
