House Science Panel Wins IRIS Bill Jurisdiction But Faces Long Odds

摘要

After one false start, House science committee Republicans have advanced their bill scaling back EPA's influential but controversial chemical risk assessment program but the measure still faces long odds as they lack an agreement with the energy committee on the bill's jurisdiction, have no Senate companion and face stiff Democratic opposition.The committee voted 17-13 on party lines July 24 to advance H.R. 6468, a bill dismantling EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) chemical risk assessment program and requiring any future assessments be conducted through the agency's program offices. The bill is available on InsideEPA.com. (Doc. ID: 213682)The committee had been slated to mark up a similar measure last week but was forced to cancel the planned markup of H.R. 6399 after the House Parliamentarian referred the earlier bill solely to the Energy and Commerce Committee.One committee source told Inside EPA that Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), the bill's sponsor and chairman of the environment subcommittee, didn't check which panel would win jurisdiction and his staff was surprised when the Parliamentarian referred the bill to the energy committee instead of the science committee.