EPA Targets Governor’s Science Aide in Ethics Probe

Wendell Kilgore, a top scientific adviser to Gov. George Deukmejian, is under investigation by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for a possible violation of ethics laws involving his work on behalf of an industry group, federal officials confirmed Wednesday.

Because of the probe, Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) called on Kilgore, a professor of toxicology at UC Davis, to resign from his post as chairman of the governor’s Proposition 65 scientific advisory panel.

The investigation of Kilgore, being conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general, focuses on Kilgore’s activities after leaving a federal panel that provided scientific advice to the EPA.

Last June, after leaving the panel, Kilgore was paid by the Northwest Food Processors Assn. to testify in court about the pesticide dinoseb, a chemical on which he previously had advised the EPA. The food processors’ group was in court seeking to overturn the EPA’s ban on the use of dinoseb, which the agency said can cause birth defects. In his testimony on behalf of the food association, Kilgore said he believed that the chemical was safe.

Under federal law, it is illegal for an employee who has worked on a specific issue for a federal agency to act as an agent for an outside group or business on the same subject. One question the investigation is seeking to answer is whether this law applies to Kilgore.

Repeated efforts to reach Kilgore Wednesday were unsuccessful.

The links between Kilgore and other members of the EPA’s scientific advisory panel with industry groups have come under scrutiny in recent weeks because of the panel’s recommendation that the EPA not ban the use of Alar, the controversial growth-inducing chemi cal sprayed on apples.

In Washington, Democratic senators have charged that Kilgore and six other members of the eight-member panel had served as consultants to the chemical industry at the time they ruled on the use of Alar.

Hayden’s call for Kilgore’s resignation from the California scientific advisory panel is the latest salvo in a long-simmering battle over the implementation of Proposition 65, the anti-toxics initiative approved by voters in 1986.

Hayden and other backers of Proposition 65 have maintained that the panel chaired by Kilgore has stalled implementation of the law by delaying listing of hundreds of toxic chemicals.

Conflict of Interest Laws

“The key scientists who are charged with determining whether our drinking water is safe, the air that we breathe is safe . . . are taking money from the chemical and oil companies,” Hayden said. “This is a national scandal. This is a state scandal. This is a violation of the intent of Proposition 65.”

Hayden called on the Fair Political Practices Commission to investigate whether Kilgore and Warner North, another member of Deukmejian’s panel, violated state conflict of interest laws by consulting for chemical companies while helping decide what substances should be covered by Proposition 65.

North, who has served as a consultant for the Chemical Manufacturers Assn., Chevron and a variety of other industry groups that could be affected by Proposition 65, said he was surprised by Hayden’s charge.

“I don’t believe I have a conflict of interest,” North said. “I’ve disqualified myself on certain chemicals and I thought I made that very clear at the time. I will welcome the opportunity to discuss the situation with the Fair Political Practices Commission.”