Smog reduction to cost billions annually

government-funded research to influence federal policy.

TCEQ officials said Gradient was the only company that responded to its requests for proposals in 2013. The agency’s chief toxicologist, Michael Honeycutt, said the state’s $1.65 million investment in Gradient’s research is paying off. He credited the studies with influencing the national debate over EPA’s proposed reduction.

“Every part per billion that they don’t lower it is millions of dollars,” Honeycutt said. “So we think that the return on investment in this is just phenomenal. Just phenomenal.” Holding back records

Environmentalists say that the opposite is true. “For every part per billion we don’t lower the standard, it’s costing us millions of dollars in health costs,” said Elena Craft, a Texas-based toxicologist with the Environmental Defense Fund. “There are better things we could have done with these resources that would have actually led to an improvement in public health.”

TCEQ released some emails and other communication with Gradient in response to a records request by the Houston Chronicle, but it is seeking to shield thousands more pages of documents from the public.

The proposed rule, which would set the standard between 65 to 70 ppb, is expected to be finalized this fall. Some Congressional Republicans have called the EPA’s proposed rule a job killer and are pushing bills that would curtail the agency’s power to set pollution limits.

According to the EPA, healthy people suffered from impaired lung function and respiratory symptoms at concentrations below the current standard. Tightening the standard by 5 ppb would prevent thousands of emergency room visits and asthma attacks, the EPA determined.

But Gradient’s TCEQ-funded analysis, which involved reviewing clinical studies and other published research, indicated only mild, reversible health effects below the current standard.

Medical and public health groups — including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Heart Association — support a standard even more stringent than the levels EPA is considering.

Rice University researchers have found strong evidence of ozone’s health impacts in Houston. The researchers analyzed City of Houston emergency ambulance service records during an eight-year span and cross referenced them with ozone measurements. Findings debated

During periods of peak pollution, the risk of heart attack increases by as much as 4.6 percent, Rice researchers found. In a separate study, they found the risk of asthma attacks increase by 10 percent between 50 and 70 ppb — below the current standard.

Houston’s ozone levels have dropped about 30 percent since the late 1990s, when the city surpassed Los Angeles for having the smoggiest air. But they remain above the federal limit after recording ozone levels of 80 ppb in 2014.

Adrian Shelley, executive director of Air Alliance Houston, questioned why the state was paying for “science-doubting studies,” and called the research “nothing but a waste of time, given there have already been better and more comprehensive reviews done elsewhere.”

Julie Goodman, a principal at Gradient, bristled at the “science-doubting” characterization.

“We’re not magically coming up with a conclusion that is dif- ferent than the EPA’s,” Goodman said. “I think we have very solid, scientific methods that are peer reviewed, and the results fell where they fell.”

Twoof Gradient’s TCEQ-funded studies on the health impacts of ozone were published in Critical Reviews in Toxicology, a peerreviewed journal run by Editorin-Chief Roger McClellan.

McClellan was a former chair and member of the EPA’s science advisory panel. He also disclosed in federal documents prior consulting work for the American Petroleum Institute as well as energy and transportation companies.

He said the journal, published since the 1970s, ranks among the top 10 in the field of toxicology based on its impact factor, which reflects the average number of citations of articles published within the past two years.

He praised Gradient’s work and its reputation, and called the TCEQ-funded ozone research a “seminal contribution to the literature on the health effects of ozone. It certainly provides information that ought to be considered in terms of the regulatory process and any potential revision of the standard.”

Philippe Grandjean, an adjunct professor of environmental health at Harvard University, sat on the journal’s editorial board for more than 20 years, until 2012 when he resigned over concerns about several articles he thought were biased against regulatory action on toxic chemicals. “The journal seems to favor articles from industry sources and consulting companies, usually with conclusions that emphasize uncertainties and the need for more research before a firm conclusion can reached,” he wrote to McClellan in 2012.

He said the journal’s publisher, Informa Healthcare, offered to conduct a review for potential conflicts of interest, but later reneged.

“The matter was discussed by our editorial advisory board, and all I can say is none of the other members of the advisory board shared those concerns,” McClellan said. “We stand on the science.”

TCEQ officials discounted criticism of the journal, noting its board members are “very well respected and huge names in the field of toxicology.”

In addition to research on lowering the ozone limit, the state also paid Gradient to examine the health impact of a 2002 wildfire in Quebec on air quality and mortality in Boston and New York. Honeycutt said the data will allow TCEQ to relate the research there to “what happens here whenever we have forest fires.”

Craft, the EDF toxicologist called that “crazy.” “I’m not sure how a fire in Quebec would somehow serve as a good model for understanding meteorological patterns in Texas,” she said.

TCEQ also paid Gradient $150,000 to help put on a threeday “Independent Ozone Workshop” in Austin in April. Honeycutt said Gradient helped plan the workshop, provided expertise and background documents. The firm has also been hired to conduct research on asthma and ozone, but the report is not yet finished, officials said.

Environmentalists also took issue with TCEQ’s $1 million contract with New York-based NERA Economic Consulting. Much at stake

That firm estimated Texas would need to spend as much as $54 billion annually on emission reduction measures if the limit dropped to 65 ppb. The EPA estimated Texas’ cost to be $4 billion annually.

Anne E. Smith, NERA’s senior vice president, said the EPA’s cost projection is basically a “made up number” that is “not consistent with economic logic.” She said the EPA fails to account for the difficulty of continually cutting emissions, comparing it to only considering the cost of picking “low-hanging fruit,” rather than harvesting all the way up the tree.

NERA’s estimate is “wildly inflated,” countered Michael Livermore, an associate professor at the University of Virginia School of Law who specializes in environmental law and cost-benefit analysis.

“Industry doesn’t seek out the most expensive way to comply with a regulation; they seek the cheapest way,” he said. “Compliance costs come down over time.” Honeycutt backs work

Liver more added that estimates by NERA and EPA do not factor in the economic benefits of the reduced ozone level, such as reduced medical and hospital bills. Honeycutt has made controversial statements about ozone in the past. He wrote in a blog post last year that people generally are not exposed to significant levels of ozone because they “spend more than 90 percent of their time indoors.”

He argues that the current science on ozone exposure is largely outdated and overestimates health risks.

“We think high levels of ozone are bad for you,” Honeycutt said in a recent interview. “We think the levels we saw back in the ‘80s and ‘90s were bad for people. If you look at the studies being done now, under levels of ozone you find today, you don’t see those effects.”

Honeycutt said the consultants have acted as a kind of force-multiplier for TCEQ’s battle against lowering the standard. The agency has 15 toxicologists, but only one is dedicated to ozone, he said.

“We can write reports we put on our web site and no one would take them seriously,” he said. “But we put the work through external peer review in journals so it stands up to scrutiny, so it demonstrates it’s good work.” Susan.Carroll@chron.com twitter.com/SusanCarroll