or industrial customers. The study found that the new ozone standards could reduce U.S. GDP by $270 billion per year and result in 2.9 million fewer job equivalents per year on average through 2040.
The Clean Air Act, which sets air quality standards for six pollutants including ozone, is the only federal environmental law that expressly forbids the EPA from considering the feasibility and costs of attaining a standard. In my mind, that should set the bar higher for the science. This is particularly the case with ozone, because the economic costs would be enormous, and the standard will be almost unachievable even if the public is able to bear those costs. There should be no doubt that lowering the standard will result in health benefits, but that is not the case for this consideration of the ozone standard. How can the EPA in good conscience make a policy decision this expensive when the data are so contradictory that their own modeling predicts more deaths in some areas from lowering the standard?
I’m often asked, wouldn’t it be easier to just accept what the EPA does? Isn’t it a lot of trouble to try to affect the direction of the EPA’s 16,000 employees and $8 billion budget? Yes, of course that would be easier, but it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.
Environmental regulations should be based on sound science. If they are not, then it opens the door for regulations that are based on politics, or on other reasons that do not benefit the public. The TCEQ has been provided with the expertise and funding to do research and science to assure that regulations are effective and beneficial to the environment and to public health. That is what the legislature and the people of Texas task us to do, and we take that task very seriously.
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Getting to Know Dr. Michael Honeycutt, Director, Toxicology Division
Dr. Michael E. Honeycutt is a dedicated, distinguished scientist who has served the people of Texas through his work for the Toxicology Division of the TCEQ since 1996. He has served as director of the division since 2009.
He is a dedicated family man. He and wife Lucinda have been married for 27 years and have two sons: Ethan, a sophomore at UT Dallas, and Adam, a senior at Pflugerville High School. They have lived in Pflugerville for 18 years, where he is active in his church and in the Boy Scouts. His hobby is woodworking, although he admits it’s hard to find time to pursue it as much as he would like.
Dr. Honeycutt joined the TCEQ after working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Mississippi. He has a bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. in toxicology from the University of Louisiana at Monroe.
Dr. Honeycutt is a full member of the Society of Toxicology, a worldwide professional and scholarly organization of scientists from academic institutions, government, and industry representing the great variety of scientists who practice toxicology in the U.S. and abroad.
He has co-authored scientific articles on a wide variety of toxicological subjects in a number of scientific journals, and is cited three times in the Encyclopedia of Toxicology. Dr. Honeycutt has given invited testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives four times, and has appeared before the Texas Legislature numerous times.
He frequently participates on committees, boards, workshops and panels, and has presented at dozens of symposia and conferences across the United States.
“I consider myself extremely lucky to be leading our team of 15 toxicologists,” he said. “No state has a more dedicated, distinguished team of scientists committed to serving its citizens. The excellence of their work in setting safe exposure levels for a wide variety of chemicals and compounds is recognized when these levels are adopted by many other states and countries.”
“I love my job,” he said. “As a scientist, I love following the facts to a conclusion, even if it is contrary to accepted wisdom.”
Dr. Honeycutt says his data aren’t always welcome. “I was cussed out by the mayor of a West Texas town when I told him to shut down the town’s water supply because of contami