Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

Trichloroethylene is among the chemicals deemed a serious public health risk by way of the Environmental Protection Agency’s IRIS database. Legislation in Congress could bar the use of IRIS and its associated scientific methods from being used to calculate the environmental and human health risks of chemicals such as TCE, a proven carcinogen.  ChemLibrarian/Wikipedia Commons

Two bills in Congress would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from using hundreds of chemical assessments completed by its IRIS program in environmental regulations or enforcement.

This story was originally published by ProPublica.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — For decades, Republican lawmakers and industry lobbyists have tried to chip away at the small program in the Environmental Protection Agency that measures the threat of toxic chemicals.

Most people don’t know IRIS, as the program is called, but it is the scientific engine of the agency that protects human health and the environment. Its scientists assess the toxicity of chemicals, estimating the amount of each that triggers cancer and other health effects. And these values serve as the independent, nonpartisan basis for the rules, regulations and permits that limit our exposure to toxic chemicals.

Now IRIS faces the gravest threat to its existence since it was created under President Ronald Reagan four decades ago.

Legislation introduced in Congress would prohibit the EPA from using any of IRIS’ hundreds of chemical assessments in environmental rules, regulations, enforcement actions and permits that limit the amount of pollution allowed into air and water. The EPA would also be forbidden from using them to map the health risks from toxic chemicals. The bills, filed in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives earlier this year, are championed by companies that make and use chemicals, along with industry groups that have long opposed environmental rules. If it becomes law, the “No IRIS Act,” as it’s called, would essentially bar the agency from carrying out its mission, experts told ProPublica.

“They’re trying to undermine the foundations for doing any kind of regulation,” said William Boyd, a professor at UCLA School of Law who specializes in environmental law. Boyd noted that IRIS reports on chemicals’ toxicity are the first step in the long process of creating legal protections from toxic pollutants in air and water.

“If you get rid of step one, you’re totally in the dark,” he said.

If the act passes, companies could even use the law to fight the enforcement of environmental rules that have long been on the books or permits that limit their toxic emissions, environmental lawyers said.

This white oak (Quercus alba) in Burlington, N.J. is known as the Keeler Oak. It is an estimated 300 years old and is emblematic of the role these massive trees can play in the forest and beyond. The white oak is a highly valuable tree, both economically and ecologically. Its seedling survival rate is declining, but University of Tennessee researchers joined others to map the species’ DNA.  Wikipedia Commons

New research involving University of Tennessee describes the genome of the mighty white oak

Patricia McDaniels is news and information manager for the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture.

KNOXVILLE — Highly valued economically, ecologically and culturally, the white oak (Quercus alba) is a keystone forest species and is one of the most abundant trees across much of eastern North America. It also faces declining seedling recruitment in many parts of its range.

In a paper published in New Phytologist, researchers representing the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, Indiana University, the University of Kentucky, the U.S. Forest Service and several more institutions described for the first time the species’ complex genome, providing insights into fundamental questions about plant evolution, tree breeding and genetic improvement efforts that could help forest managers plan for and address future forest resources.

Lead authors of the paper Meg Staton, associate professor of bioinformatics and computational genomics in the UT Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, and Drew Larson, National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University, coordinated with colleagues across the nation in academia, the U.S. Forest Service, state forests and industry to obtain genetic sequence data representative of the species.

Also central to the effort were Seth DeBolt, professor of horticulture and director of the James B. Beam Institute for Kentucky Spirits at the University of Kentucky, and Dana Nelson of the U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station and director of the Forest Health Research and Education Center at the University of Kentucky.

White oak barrels are lifeblood to the bourbon industry because the color and much of the whiskey’s flavor derive from the charred wood in which it is aged.