They tried to bury the EPA science rule by releasing it late Super Tuesday. Little did they know, I am a science policy nerd willing to dive deep into their lengthy nonsensical proposals in short order. My take on EPA's new "transparency" rule: blog.ucsusa.org/gretchen-goldm…
The supplemental proposal makes the rule even worse. The original draft was vague. It is now crystal clear that this rule will devastate the EPA's ability to conduct and use science on everything from air pollution protections, to water quality standards, to pesticide regulation.
The scientific community has voiced again and again concerns about the rule's unnecessary and dangerous restrictions on EPA's use of health studies. The new proposal does nothing to address these concerns about protecting the privacy of health data.
The proposal offers tiered access and weighting options that would still prevent EPA from using studies that rely on nonpublic data, or arbitrarily downgrade them in favor of fully public studies--A distinction that has nothing to do with study quality. This is rigging the game.
Of note, the proposal explicitly admits that a purpose of the rule is for stakeholders to reanalyze data and models. This was never about transparency. It has always been to allow entities outside the scientific community to undermine EPA science.
The administration thinks that EPA can adapt systems used by the CDC to share data between researchers. The problem is that there are fundamental differences between the the EPA and the CDC (but we already know Administrator Wheeler doesn't know that: blog.ucsusa.org/gretchen-goldm…)
Importantly, the supplemental notice retains the broad authority of the EPA Administrator to decide when the rule applies on a case-by-case basis. This makes EPA decisions wholly political and prevents the agency from using the best available science to protect public health.
We must sound the alarms. This rule takes a wrecking ball to the EPA's ability to use science to protect us all from environmental threats. Stay engaged and stay tuned. We need to fight this.
