Jump to full article: Cato Institute, 1998-09-28
Author: Dominick Armentano
Intro: It now turns out that the influential 1993 EPA report "Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders" was as phony as a three-dollar bill. State officials and private businesses that believed that ETS was a public health danger (and not just a nuisance) were completely misled by the EPA. And, of course, so was main street American public opinion.
Are those the views of a vast right-wing conspiracy? Hardly. They are the sober conclusions of a gutsy federal district court judge in North Carolina named William Osteen, whose recent ruling invalidated the very foundation of the EPA report. . .
You don't have to be a fan of smoking to agree that the EPA is a regulatory renegade spinning wildly out of control on this issue. Even several veteran career employees of the agency have gone public recently to protest its "junk science" and its irrational environmental zealotry. Congress should pull the plug on any EPA regulation that cannot be justified by evidence that is demonstrable, compelling, unequivocal and significant. None yet exists with respect to passive smoking.
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