The West Coast ag newspaper reports that EPA Region 10 leaders are using Save Family Farming’s request for criminal investigation as the basis for refusing to supply proof of their claims about the science review of the discredited EPA nitrate report. That is clearly a dodge as they also refused to provide us proof of this claim when asked repeatedly for it. Why don’t they produce the evidence? Because providing it will just dig a deeper hole for staff members who have lied about the peer review and tried to cover their tracks by false statements about the review requirements or actually changing public records. How do we know? We have documents that date to the early stages of the report that show the study was classified as “influential” science information, which federal policy requires a significant review by scientists outside the agency. After Eric Winiecki’s statement to Regional Administrator Chris Hladick was proven to be false about the nature of the review, we were told by staff that the study was categorized as “other” meaning they had full discretion in the review. But, where is the proof of that assertion? They haven’t provided either before or after we asked for a criminal investigation.
UPDATE:
National dairy market expert Lee Mielke also comments in his column in Capital Press: