GOP Bill To Outlaw EPA 'Secret Science' That Is Not Transparent, Reproducible 618
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Fox News reports that Republican lawmakers in the House are pushing legislation that would prohibit the EPA from proposing new regulations based on science that is not transparent or not reproducible. The bill introduced by Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., would bar the agency from proposing or finalizing rules without first disclosing all "scientific and technical information" relied on to support its proposed action. "Public policy should come from public data, not based on the whims of far-left environmental groups," says Schweikert. "For far too long, the EPA has approved regulations that have placed a crippling financial burden on economic growth in this country with no public evidence to justify their actions." The bill, dubbed the Secret Science Reform Act of 2014 (HR 4012), would prohibit the EPA's administrator from proposing or finalizing any rules unless he or she also discloses "all scientific and technical information" relied on by the agency in the regulations' development including all data, materials and computer models. According to Schweikert's press release a 2013 poll from the Institute of Energy Research found that 90 percent of Americans agree that studies and data used to make federal government decisions should be made public. "Provisions in the bill are consistent with the White House's scientific integrity policy, the President's Executive Order 13563, data access provisions of major scientific journals, the Bipartisan Policy Center and the recommendations of the Obama administration's top science advisors.""
"Not Reproduclibe" (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry EPA, but the studies sponsored by the [insert industry] industry couldn't reproduce the findings.
You cannot regulate them.
This will be one GIANT loophole for industry.
Same old Republican BS (Score:2, Interesting)
"For far too long, the EPA has approved regulations that have placed a crippling financial burden on economic growth in this country with no public evidence to justify their actions."
Gee, it sounds like they are doing a lot of this sort of thing. Can you name some specific instances where this has occurred?
"Provisions in the bill are consistent with the White House's scientific integrity policy, the President's Executive Order 13563, data access provisions of major scientific journals, the Bipartisan Policy Center and the recommendations of the Obama administration's top science advisors."
Are ALL or just a few of the provisions consistent with the policy? Which provisions aren't consistent with the policy?
"prohibit the EPA from proposing new regulations based on science that is not transparent or not reproducible"
So you mean that since they don't have a second planet earth to experiment on, they can't issue any rules that would relate to things like, oh, I don't know, anthropomorphic climate change?
Gee thanks, Mr. Republican, for looking out for my interests.
Death Blow to creationism (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:There is no controversy (Score:2, Interesting)
The FDA point is somewhat more important here then anything. I bet you have been conditioned from the no smoking laws and all the reports being threaded to the public that if you look at a cigarette you will get cancer and die a horrible death 3 days ago. And if you ever see someone smoking, your eyes will fall out, you will have a heart attach and die on the spot from cancer.
The fact of the matter is that less than 10 percent of life long smokers ever get cancer and only about 30 percent of all cancer deaths are attributed to smoking. Granted, your risk of cancer does increase and certain types of cancer do increase if you smoke, but it's not the death nail in the coffin it is made out to be.
As for second hand smoke [heartland.org], This is more to the point as the health effects have not been proven and by some accounts, scientific principle [blogspot.com] has been completely ignored in order to make the association to the dangers. [dailymail.co.uk]
But by no means am I saying smoking is not bad for you or that you shouldn't avoid second hand smoke if you want to either. But the hype surrounding some of the issues is blown way out of proportion and often are exaggerated. Even the US EPA lost a lawsuit in 1993-1998 for a report it issued stating people were dieing from second hand smoke due to cherry picking data [tobacco.org] and construing science in order to reach a predrawn conclusion. I guess I should also add that in 2003, the EPA had the decision reversed on appeal, not because their study or release was good, valid, or anything, but because it didn't carry any regulatory weight so it wasn't regulated by The Radon Research Act passed in 1986 under Title IV of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA).
Again, I'm not saying second hand smoke is good for you but it does appear that the science behind it being bad was if not originally, a political motivation in the least with the goal of using junk science to fuel future scientific reference to it by corruption of reality and pollution of facts. The fact is the EPA conducted itself in the exact same ways as you remember the cigarette industry doing. With open access to all the information, both can be detected more readily and pointed out publicly.
Re: "Not Reproduclibe" (Score:4, Interesting)