The Environmental Protection Agency, under pressure from the White House and the Pentagon, is poised to rule as early as today that it will not set a drinking water safety standard for perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel that has been linked to thyroid problems in pregnant women, newborns, and young children across the nation.According to a near-final document obtained by the Washington Post, EPA's "preliminary regulatory determination" - which was extensively edited by White House officials - marks the final step in a six-year battle between career EPA scientists who advocate regulating the chemical and White House and Pentagon officials who oppose it. The document estimates that up to 16.6 million Americans are exposed to perchlorate at a level many scientists consider unsafe; independent researchers, using federal and state data, put the number at between 20 million and 40 million.
"They have distorted the science to such an extent that they can justify not regulating" the chemical, said University of Massachusetts professor Robert Zoeller, an endocrinologist who specializes in thyroid hormone and brain development and who has a copy of the EPA proposal. "Infants and children will continue to be damaged, and that damage is significant."
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