EPA cites bogus study to justify lowering pollution standards

In a push to roll back an Obama-era ban on heavily polluting trucks, EPA Director Scott Pruitt ignored his own agency’s research on emissions, and turned instead to an industry-funded study that was so flawed, even the university that produced it has disavowed the findings.

Pruitt cited the study to justify his proposal to repeal air emissions standards for glider trucks, a type of truck that is advertised and sold as new, but is still equipped with an old diesel engine.

The trucks produce between 40 and 50 times as much harmful air pollution as trucks with more modern engines, and if left unregulated, could lead to an estimated 1,600 premature deaths annually and thousands of additional cases of heart disease, lung cancer, asthma, and related health conditions.

That’s why President Obama’s EPA enacted regulations to get them off the roads.

But at the behest of right-wing activists and one very prominent Trump donor, Pruitt is pushing to undo the Obama-era emissions standard, justifying the move by citing a 2016 study from Tennessee Tech that found that gliders produce about the same levels of emissions as other trucks.

As it turns out, the largest manufacturer of gliders — a Tennessee-based company called Fitzgerald Glider Kits — bankrolled that study.

The owner of that company, Tennessee businessman Tommy Fitzgerald, is a GOP donor who has met privately with Pruitt and even held a campaign event for Trump, according to the LA Times.

When Tennessee Tech found out that the EPA was using the study to justify changing emissions guidelines in a way that would benefit the company that funded the research, university faculty and administrators started looking more closely at the research.

Tennessee Tech ultimately disavowed the study, saying there were serious concerns about “the methodology and accuracy” of the research, and that the EPA should not use it to inform new emissions guidance. The study is currently the subject of an official university investigation into research misconduct for failing to adhere to basic scientific standards.

Now, Pruitt is claiming that he didn’t rely on the study when he developed the proposal to roll back emissions standards — even though he cited the study when he announced the proposal.

For Pruitt, though, covering up scandals and denying science is just another day on the job.

Earlier this month, a series of newly released emails revealed that Pruitt’s EPA had worked with the White House to suppress a federal study that found dangerously high levels of toxic pollutants in U.S. drinking water.

Not long after, Pruitt created an entirely new scandal by trying to ban the press from covering the hearings on the other scandal. Well, one of the other scandals.