So as a worshipper of all-things NPR, it was surreal - in an excellent way - to wake up this morning to an Elizabeth Shogren report on the same EPA nomination hearing I covered and wrote about yesterday.

(And if you read yesterday and then heard Morning Edition, well shit - that was already old news. That's right, bitches - spread the word - you heard it here first. I'll be the next Matt Drudge, except, you know - sane.)

Anyways, first here's the report on Morning Edition.

I just got back from a press conference where Boxer read the warning off a can of Raid, then held it up and said that the can was currently more ethical than the EPA.

Boxer rocks. She's funny as hell. (Here, they call that "media savvy.")

And here's the story that ran in Santa Barbara this morning. If you live in God's Country, I suggest you make the 90-minute drive and pick up a copy. I cannot encourage this strongly enough.

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Boxer grills EPA nominee on pesticide study

4/7/05
By DICKIE CRONKITE
NEWS-PRESS CORRESPONDENT

WASHINGTON -- In what was otherwise a routine hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., grilled Environmental Protection Agency administrator nominee Stephen Johnson on the agency's refusal to cancel a program testing the effects of pesticides on children.

Ms. Boxer expressed concern regarding the EPA's Children Environmental Exposure Research Study, or CHEERS. According to the EPA Web site, CHEERS is a "field monitoring study designed to evaluate the exposure of young children to pesticides and other chemicals as a result of normal use in their homes."


"Unless this project is canceled, I have a lot of problems moving this nomination forward," Ms. Boxer said.

The study does not ask participants to submit to above-normal pesticide levels, but asks them to allow researchers into their homes every three to six months, over a two-year period, when planning to use pesticides.

The study was to take place in Duval County, Fla., where, Ms. Boxer noted, the population is 27 percent nonwhite. She displayed an enlarged brochure for the program that promised families up to $970 to participate. She also displayed the type of video camcorder used in the project and an official CHEERS baby bib.

"Don't we know that this is morally wrong to entice people . . .?" Ms. Boxer said. She compared the study to examining smokers instead of working to help them quit.

Mr. Johnson told the committee he ordered a suspension of the study in November 2004 but acknowledged he has not canceled it outright.

"To be clear, no additional work will be conducted on this study subject to the outcome of external scientific and ethical review," Mr. Johnson said in a letter to Ms. Boxer.

Currently the acting EPA administrator, Mr. Johnson has been with the agency for 24 years. He is currently the EPA acting administrator. He received a master's degree in pathology and served as both deputy director of the EPA's pesticide program and deputy administrator.

Ms. Boxer said in a statement she will announce whether she will support the nomination today.

A committee vote on Mr. Johnson's nomination is expected next week.

As a careerist with the EPA, Mr. Johnson is a different kind of nominee than his two Bush-appointed predecessors, both former governors.

Christine Todd Whitman, former governor of New Jersey, served as EPA administrator from January 2001 to June 2003. Michael Leavitt, former governor of Utah, served from November 2003 to January 2005.


Dickie Cronkite writes from Washington, D.C., for Medill News Service. E-mail him at *******@newspress.com.