Why Did EPA Block A NASA Plane From Monitoring Pollution?
Post-Hurricane Harvey, NASA tried to fly a pollution-spotting plane over Houston. The EPA said no, LA Times
“According to emails obtained by The Times via a public records request and interviews with dozens of scientists and officials familiar with the situation, EPA and state officials argued that NASA’s data would cause “confusion” and might “overlap” with their own analysis – which was showing only a few, isolated spots of concern. “At this time, we don’t think your data would be useful,” Michael Honeycutt, Texas’ director of toxicology, wrote to NASA officials, adding that low-flying helicopters equipped with infra-red cameras, contracted by his agency, would be sufficient. EPA deferred to Honeycutt, a controversial toxicologist who has suggested air pollution may be beneficial to human health. The response stunned NASA scientists, many of whom had flown similar missions in the past, including over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.”
Science Committee Chairs Question Decision to Halt NASA Air Pollution Monitoring in Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey
“Today, Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) with Environment Subcommittee Chair Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX) and Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee Chairwoman Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ)sent letters to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, and Texas’ Commission on Environmental Quality Toxicology Division Director Michael Honeycutt requesting all documents prepared or received in relation to the decision making process that prevented the NASA Atmospheric Tomography Mission from participating in the post-hurricane response to the Houston area in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey”
Is anybody shocked anymore at such brazenly awful behavior by the Cabinet officials who work in this administration? Corruption of the norms of decent behavior has become an everyday occurrence with this group of miscreants. Of course, how can it be any different, they take their cues from the miscreant-in-chief.
(And let’s not forget the equally awful performance of the Texas governor. But again, why would anybody be shocked?)
When scientists are blocked from doing research, or worse, because others have power or control of resources, and do not want to be contradicted, then this country is on a completely unethical path if not heading towards complete failure.
I love my country and fear it is becoming superstitious and anti-science as evidenced by the measles outbreak and disbelief in human caused climate change. We certainly cannot compete and may not even survive with the rising tide against knowledge and education. Thank you Keith Cowing for pointing this out.
I find it curious that they actually needed to get permission to make the observations. I mean I could see another agency ignoring their results, but the idea that NASA scientists needed permission to even observe something is disturbing.
If NASA overflew Houston, then Texas officials couldn’t “edit the data” like they do with their own, fake studies. NASA would probably reveal many secret toxic dumps all around the city…
It looks a little more complicated than that, although you have to read almost to the end of the LA Times article to find the details. NASA was planning to fly the aircraft from California to Oklahoma and back for some sort of test or calibration. Shortly after the hurricane hit, they offered to help. The EPA and the local authority (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) said they didn’t want NASA to help. The director of NASA’s Earth Sciences division decided that, if they didn’t want help, NASA wasn’t going to help. All those decisions are questionable, but it doesn’t sound like NASA actually needed permission. The director of Earth Sciences could have decided to make the flight despite EPA and TCEQ objections.
The truth is often buried somewhere in the details. It may be they were so busy that they didn’t need the distraction. I do know they were insanely busy trying to handle the disaster. Sometimes help coming from all directions can be overwhelming in itself. Unless we know why they didn’t want NASA to help, there is no story here. Has anyone asked them why they didn’t want NASA’s help?
It looks like the LA Times got some material from a Freedom of Information Act request, or something similar, and Congress is now asking for much more information. At this point, I’m concerned, since NASA wasn’t doing anything except collecting data and weren’t planning on immediately distributing it. The EPA and other officials could just ignore that if (since) the were probably swamped. It would take more data to know, but it feels like wanting to be able to put their spin on the events and not having another agency making it a mixed message. But that’s hardly the worst thing a government agency has ever done.
In terms of “helping”, you’re right and that is something you need to be careful of. It’s actually a problem that can come up with NASA flight missions. If a manager finds out about a problem, he often has a compulsion to do something and help fix it. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Actually, sometimes it’s critical. But sometimes the issue is actually a minor problem or something the people involved can fix without help.
Insisting on “helping” can just waste time and effort (preparing reports on the issue, making presentations, explaining things to any outside experts management pulls in, etc.) That makes it a balancing act for the managers. When they don’t do it right, people may respond by sweeping problems under the rug. Which means management doesn’t find out about real problems in time. Which isn’t good.
Huh? The way this would go down is that NASA would make the flight, take the data, analyze it, and then would provide the information to the EPA and Texas authorities at a time and date when they are able to digest and use it. Nothing to be overwhelmed about here.
I didn’t read it close enough the first time.
Politics aside, there’s an awful lot of intra-agency deference that goes on; my world involves permitting at every level, and it’s entirely normal for an agency to hold a project that requires permit review, for instance, at the informal (not recorded) request of another Agency. And it crosses governmental levels.
In the main it’s a good thing for the public as well as land use (and for the animals). Sometimes, not so much.
So the headline is basically misleading in claiming the “EPA Blocked the Flight” since the manager at NASA simply decided not to waste NASA money on a flight the response team was not interested in.
It also sounds like there needs to be some educational outreach by NASA to show how the data collected by its aircraft would be more useful than what they had available using helicopters.
The headline may have been overblown. But where did money come into the situation? NASA had already planned a shakedown flight that would take it close to Houston. It would have been a straightforward diversion of an already planned flight.
No, budget concerns weren’t the issue. NASA decided not to divert the flight and take the data because the higher ups did not want to ruffle feathers within other government agencies that said they didn’t want or need the data (hmm, I wonder if the ultimate decision was made by Bridenstein).
One hardly needs an airplane to be able to smell Houston. Or Port Orange. Or Baton Rouge, or Metairie, or…
Because Republicans.