The EPA just did something weird, which seems small but could really matter. They suddenly dropped a grant program for $20 million for “green chemistry” studies, just before the application deadline. Yes, $20M isn’t a lot of money overall, but green chemistry is one of the most important things you haven’t heard of for improving human health and environmental safety. And the mysterious behavior implies something more critical may be going on.
First, let’s hit a quick overview of green chemistry. Chemical processes are behind things we touch, breathe, and taste every day. They create preservatives and dyes for our foods, their waste products are in the air, and plastics and other products are in food containers. Scares about them show up on a continual basis, as newly discovered issues arise or manufacturers are discovered to be using banned chemicals. (A current example can be seen in San Francisco, where nail salon products have chemicals they claim not to. Formaldehyde is a well-known preservative, which is probably why it was used in the first place, and now we have a problem.)
Green chemistry begins with asking why this is all true? Why aren't we using processes we already know are safe? This could prevent these problems before they happen — we wouldn’t have to clean up products before (or after) release, they would be born clean.
Chemical production is like any other production — it is designed by people. And people want to build things they know will work. So when designing a new chemical process, chemists look for building blocks that are already known to work. It’s like when an engineer designs a machine that needs a motor, they look in a catalog of motors, they don’t design the motor from scratch. Similarly, when a chemist wants to add or subtract from a molecule, they look at known processes to do that.
And our chemistry “catalog" has a lot of old stuff, and was usually built without anyone asking “What will this do to the environment?”
Green chemistry tries to build new processes to replace known ones, concentrating on making minimal negative impact along the way. It is about replacing the “catalog” entries with safer alternatives, and building a new approach to assembling the processes. In the nail polish case, it would find preservatives to use instead of formaldehyde in the first place.
You might think this is just an obviously great idea, but like other obviously great ideas it has opponents. Some scientists honestly find this idea quixotic, but they certainly don’t think it’s wrong to try. But just like with alternative energy, those making money from the existing system are loath to upset their income stream.
So despite the fact that this idea has been around for decades, here we are getting upset about a paltry $20M in funding for it. This should really be the subject of a significant push, but that’s a subject for another time.
The current fuss stems from that $20M funding from the EPA to establish four new research centers at $5M each. These are significant grants, so many scientists from around the country worked for more than a year to put their proposals together, which were due on 25 April.
And then this week, the EPA announced the program was being cancelled.
This is pretty shocking behavior. When the gov’t announces a program this means they have the money allocated for the purpose. They do cancel requests for proposals, but almost never this close to the end; most problems arise pretty quickly. And the announcement was essentially content free, describing no real reason for the change. Did the money vanish in a puff of smoke? Did the accountant have a really bad run in Vegas on EPA money?
That was on the 10 April. On 11 April they reversed course, in an equally nebulous announcement. "On rare occasions, solicitations are cancelled or revised when necessary to ensure the integrity of our grants process.” This may be true, but what issue challenged the program’s integrity? From the statement as reported, this true statement may simply be alongside the course reversal. After all, many things happen “on rare occasions”. But was this one of those occasions, or was something else responsible?
The most obvious explanation is that the money somehow went away. Maybe someone thought they had enough pull to simply transfer it into a program they favored. Or maybe someone had enough pull to simply impede a process they didn’t want to happen.
In any case, now we can add Green Chemistry to the list of things we have to watch the administration for. “Trust but verify”, you know.