The Environmental Protection Agency serves a vital role in protecting human health and the environment. What lies at the bedrock of the EPA’s work — and what has made them so successful in their mission — is the principle of using facts, data and science in determining courses of actions.

Earlier this year, the EPA undertook a review of formaldehyde through the Toxic Substance Control Act. We all remember formaldehyde from high school science class and funeral homes, but what many may not realize is that it is also an essential component in many aspects of everyday life — cars, construction materials and medical equipment to name a few. Given its wide use, I thoroughly applaud the EPA efforts in reviewing and setting safe standards for its use.

However, I believe that what has emerged from EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System’s initial draft that sets levels at 0.11 parts per billion marks a rare occasion in which the agency’s assessments are out of step with the global scientific community.

In 2017 the World Health Organization reaffirmed its previous ruling of setting formaldehyde emissions at a maximum of 80 parts-per-billion. The European Chemical Agency set their safe range as between 50-100 ppb. In the daily course of everyday life, humans naturally breathe in and out formaldehyde at 1 ppb. There are decades of scientific research backing safety standards at these levels — and the EPA would be well-grounded to set standards in these ranges based on that research and scientific consensus.

However, setting standards below the scientific and medical consensus, let alone what humans naturally breathe, will affect the real world in a negative way and undermine the EPA’s overarching mission to protect the environment and public health.

For example, one of the major actions of the environmental community over the last 30 years has been increasing fuel efficiency and green building, and a primary component of achieving these objectives has been through the use of formaldehyde. In cars, they have replaced steel parts with formaldehyde plastics to make cars light, safe and fuel-efficient. In buildings, formaldehyde is an essential element in achieving energy efficiency standards and lasting durability. Formaldehyde has even been critical in reducing landfills and lowering our carbon footprint by helping recycle previously discarded materials.

What makes matters even worse, however, is that a ruling as outside the mainstream as this could undermine the absolute need to set safe standards in the United States. The conservative federal courts have set their sights on the “administrative state” and have used invented legal reasoning to take down regulatory action — giving these judges actual scientific backing to undermine regulatory action is dangerous.

What would be even more devastating though is a repeal through congressional action. If the EPA used a flawed scientific approach, Congress could repeal the regulation through the Congressional Review Act. In this scenario, not only would no safe standards be set — but the EPA would be prohibited from setting any future standards unless Congress explicitly passed a law giving them that authority, undermining the very mission this regulatory action seeks to put into place.

The EPA has a long, storied and successful history of using the highest standards of science to protect our environment, our communities, and our country. I urge them to continue to follow those sound science standards during their determination of safety levels of formaldehyde. Doing so will protect families, workers, and follow the tried-and-true conservation ethos of leaving our environment and our community better off than how we found it.

Paul Selberg is the former executive director of the Nevada Conservation League and a Las Vegas resident. 

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