EPA un-scrubs data base of experiment exposing children to diesel exhaust

Posted on March 22, 2013 by Steve Milloy | Leave a comment

Presumably our FOIA request asking who ordered the data deletion caused a rethink at EPA.

On February 25, I reported that EPA had scrubbed from its data base evidence of agency-funded University of Southern California researchers testing diesel exhaust on children.

On February 27, JunkScience.com submitted a FOIA request asking for:

… copies of e-mails,telephone logs and other documentary evidence explaining who made changes, and why changes were made to the EPA extramural grants database concerning the 2005 Progress Report for grant number R831861C002 between the dates December 14, 2012 and February 25, 2013. I am specifically interested in knowing why the progress report was modified (i.e., text deletion) between those two dates.

Today (March 22), just for grins, I went back to check whether any changes had been made to the data base — surprise, surprise — there was the original document entirely restored.

So here’s the document trail:

·         December 14, 2012 version;

·         February 25, 2013 version (note deleted details);

·         March 22, 2013 version (restored to December 14, 2012 original).

Interestingly, this is the precise pattern of conduct followed by the EPA when we exposed the deletion of grants during the Peter Gleick scandal.