Brief of Amici Regarding Abuse of Science by EPA in Dioxin Cancer Risk Management

The Amici believe that the Writ for Certiorari presents an important legal issue with regard to whether the Environ- mental Protection Agency can ignore the overwhelming scientific consensus in rendering pervasive regulatory deci- sions and whether it can avoid accountability and review of its actions. In arriving at the critical decision in its dioxin cancer management program, the cancer potency factor, the EPA disregarded well established principles of pharmacology and molecular biology in adopting a linear, rather than a threshold-based risk model. The fact that the EPA has ignored the scientific consensus is clearly established by a recent report of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council. Moreover, the EPA has failed on numer- ous occasions to provide adequate scientific bases for rejecting this scientific consensus in favor of a threshold model. These failures dictate a need for this Court to deter- mine whether EPA should be required to hold an APA hearing with all the procedural due process provided therein.