On the recordFebruary 16, 2011
The scale of this reduction to EPA science shuts down EPA's STAR research grants this year and next, affecting researchers in universities throughout the Nation. The Science to Achieve Results program, whose acronym is STAR, grants money to leverage innovative, cutting-edge research with universities across the Nation. Now, I don't know about the way they have titled some of these grants, but I suspect that the gentleman doesn't know much more than I do about the specific grant itself, other than the title. What I do know is that this amendment ends funding for the Children's Health Research Centers, which focus on the study of children's environmental health hazards, including asthma and exposure to chemicals. It ends funding for research for four EPA air research centers that focus on the health effects of air pollutants on all ages of Americans, especially the most physically vulnerable and those in smog-laden communities. It ends funding for EPA's groundbreaking computational toxicology research effort, which enables us to screen literally thousands of chemicals at one time. I've seen how this works, and it's extraordinarily productive and cost-efficient. It screens chemicals for environmental health hazards, and it saves millions of dollars in the process. These innovative and cost-saving tools also offer the potential to greatly reduce our dependence on animal testing.
