Members of Congress are pressing the Environmental Protection Agency over its renewed support for animal testing and its backsliding on rabbits that were supposed to be retired, saying the government must seek out more humane ways to do science.
The Trump administration had put the EPA on a glide path to severely curbing mammal testing by 2025 and phasing it out altogether by 2035. The bipartisan group of more than three dozen lawmakers, led by Rep. Lisa McClain, demanded to know who canceled those plans.
They also chastised the agency for failing to retire and relocate testing rabbits — another part of the Trump administration’s plans. Instead, rabbits have been denied relocation and have been euthanized, according to documents obtained by the White Coat Waste Project and first published late last year by The Washington Times.
“The EPA’s continued abuse of animals through unnecessary chemical testing is disgusting,” said Ms. McClain, Michigan Republican. “We know that chemical tests on animals don’t translate to humans; the EPA has admitted that for years. But under the Biden administration, they’d rather abuse animals and send them to the glue factory rather than protect these innocent creatures.”
She and fellow lawmakers asked EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan to explain the thinking behind canceling the testing phaseout, including the dates decisions were made, who made them, and what evidence they relied on.
They also asked for details of how many animals the EPA used in testing from 2021 to 2023.
“During your Senate confirmation hearing you did say you would “remain strongly committed” to reducing and replacing animal testing,” the lawmakers reminded Mr. Regan.
They said the public expects “more humane and cost-effective research methods” from its agencies.
The House members particularly questioned why the EPA has failed to follow through on retiring rabbits that had been in the testing facility but that were slated for relocation in 2021.
The Times reported in December on the EPA’s decision to euthanize one rabbit, named Jasper, after he developed health issues rather than move him to another facility. His caretakers said it was too much of a burden to provide the daily socializing the bunny would need.
The moves were uncovered by the White Coat Waste Project, which works to end federal funding for animal testing.
Justin Goodman, WCW’s senior vice president, praised the lawmakers for holding the Biden EPA accountable.
“Under Trump’s Administrator Andrew Wheeler, the EPA was poised to make history by ending its animal testing by 2035 but we’ve exposed how Biden EPA chief Michael Regan broke a commitment he made under oath to support this work and has instead returned to butchering bunnies and sentencing millions of other animals to painful deaths in unnecessary experiments where they’re forced to ingest chemicals and inhale diesel fumes, firearms emissions, and wildfire smoke,” he said.
Rep. Don Davis, a North Carolina Democrat who led the letter along with Ms. McClain, said it’s an issue the whole federal government should be tackling.
“We must fight for our furry four-legged companions by ensuring agencies establish concrete plans with clear benchmarks, deadlines, and transparency,” Mr. Davis said. “Doing so will allow us to track progress and guarantee accountability to hard-working taxpayers who fund these initiatives.”
The EPA, in December, told The Times that it was compelled to scrap the testing phaseout timeline, calling them a needless point of contention.
“While the goals/dates in the original work plan may have been intended to spur focus and action, the dates themselves became the primary focus of discussion within the scientific and stakeholder communities as opposed to what actions or path the Agency should take to reduce the use of animals while still remaining fully protective of human health and the environment,” the EPA said. “As a result, the goals/dates were removed to shift the focus towards these actions as represented by the objectives, strategies, and deliverables outlined in the document.”
The EPA’s reversal came amid pressure from environmental groups, a key part of President Biden’s political coalition, who complained that Mr. Wheeler’s timeline was a sop to the chemical industry.
In a letter to Mr. Regan last year the groups, led by the Natural Resources Defense Council, said animal testing — and particularly rodent testing — is the best way to confirm the safety of new chemicals.
The EPA runs its own testing labs and companies seeking approval of chemicals also perform testing and submit results to the agency. In 2019, Science.org reported that between 20,000 and 100,000 animals were used annually for the studies.
The EPA is one of many federal agencies that do animal testing.
Paul A. Locke, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the EPA is exploring what’s known as new approach methodologies, or alternatives to animal testing. The question is when those NAMs will be scientifically robust enough to replace animal testing.
Mr. Locke said the EPA just published a new plan for testing for eye irritation from new chemicals and it promotes use of NAMs. But NAMs aren’t as far along in other areas of EPA’s research, such as reproductive toxicity or developmental toxicity.
The good news is EPA is starting down this road. The bad news is the progress has been slow,” he said.
Mr. Locke also said the EPA made a mistake in erasing the animal testing phaseout goals, and particularly by doing it quietly.
“My take on it is that these goals were always meant to be aspirational, and an agency like EPA, my expectation as a member of the public is they are going to provide leadership on these sorts of issues, and aspirational goals are central to being a leader,” he said.
“It was also done in a way that didn’t alert the public so we couldn’t have a discussion about this,” he said. “Wheeler made that announcement and then all of a sudden it just disappeared. Poof. That shouldn’t have happened.”
EPA has a conference scheduled for this fall to discuss progress in NAMs.