Michael Dourson's Work for Chemical Industry Sponsors

This letter, known as an ethics agreement, details the steps the Michael L. Dourson must take if confirmed by the Senate to avoid a conflict of interest. The letter says that Mr. Dourson will not, for one year, participate in a particular matter involving his former employer, the University of Cincinnati. But it does not appear to explicitly prohibit him from evaluating chemicals manufactured by companies he had previously done work for, via a contract with his employer.

This is an example of a disclosure document related to research Mr. Dourson has done recently, funded by a company that he could soon be interacting with at the E.P.A. In this case, he discloses a contractual relationship, apparently through his employer, with companies including PPG, a supplier of paints, coatings, specialty materials and fiberglass, as well as Waste Management, a waste disposal company.

Mr. Dourson has served for most of the last two decades as one of the top executives at a research consulting firm, set up as a nonprofit, called Toxicology Excellent for Risk Assessment, or TERA. In July 2015, TERA became part of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and Mr. Dourson joined the faculty there. In both arrangements, the organizations have a history of taking industry money to help pay for research. Here is a tally of how much industry money, as a share of the total budget, and names of the companies, dating back to 2010.

This is a required financial disclosure statement that shows that Mr. Dourson's wages in the last year primarily came from University of Cincinnati. He did not take direct payments from chemical companies. Instead, the companies at times funded work at the research center where he was employed.

The E.P.A. put out this statement after Mr. Dourson was nominated, at the same time as many environmental groups criticized the nomination, based on the work Mr. Dourson has done for the chemical industry.

This email became public in a court case, showing the internal debate within DuPont as it considered hiring Mr. Dourson. The company executives note that Mr. Dourson can help package and promote results of a study that the company might finance. This document was first written about in a piece published by The Intercept.

Here Mr. Dourson testified as a defense witness on behalf of DuPont, in a lawsuit it faced related to its chemical PFOA, which was used as a nonstick coating on pans, among other uses. Mr. Dourson says in his testimony below he was not paid by DuPont to appear at this hearing.