"The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has been under tough Congressional scrutiny over the last two years for what critics assert are flawed evaluations of health risks at the nation’s worst contaminated sites. Now the Government Accountability Office has issued a report detailing some problems with the agency’s internal policies and inconsistent monitoring by its management.

In the report, released on Thursday as officials from the health agency were questioned at a hearing of the House  subcommittee on investigations and oversight, the office found a lack of policies in place to give a higher level of review to hazardous sites. The subcommittee is part of the Committee on Science and Technology."

Mireya Navarro reports for Green in the New York Times May 20, 2010. [2]