After three years,
the Trump EPA
still considers
carbon dioxide,
the staff of life
on our planet,
to be a pollutant !
That anti-science
position has not
even been challenged.
And our president
has not bothered
to educate himself
sufficiently to speak
intelligently about
climate science
for even one minute !
The Environmental
Protection Agency
( EPA )
created a rule to keep
"secret science"
out of the regulatory
crafting process.
Obama-era officials
in the EPA were furious.
Which implies
the rule made sense
-- it was pro-science
to restrict the EPA
from using research
that was not
publicly available.
Recently, the rule was
significantly weakened.
The EPA must now
only give preference
to studies
with public data,
but can
also use "research"
with secret data,
hidden from view.
In 2018,
former EPA Chief
Scott Pruitt proposed
reversing the practice
of relying on
secretive data
in crafting EPA rules.
“Secret Science”
has been used
to support billions
of dollars worth of
environmental
regulations.
EPA Administrator
Andrew Wheeler
said in March 2019
that he intended
on moving forward
on the proposal,
after replacing Pruitt.
“Other things being equal,
the agency will give
greater consideration
to studies where
the underlying data
and models are available
in a manner sufficient for
independent validation,”
the EPA wrote
in the new proposal.
Wheeler addressed
the changes:
“These additions
and clarifications
to the proposed rule
will ensure
that the science
supporting the agency’s
decisions is transparent
and available for
independent
validation
while still
maintaining protection
of confidential and
personally identifiable
information,”
he said.
Obama-era
EPA officials
say the revision
is just as bad as
the original proposal.
“Now is not the time
to play games with
critical medical research
that underpins every rule
designed to protect us
from harmful pollution
in our air and in our water,”
said Gina McCarthy,
a former EPA chief
during the Obama
administration.
"Secret Science"
includes studies
that rely on private
medical information
-- anonymous data
from private citizens,
to conduct research
into topics such as
chemical exposure.
I strongly believe
there is no logical reason
to have any public policies
supported by scientific data
that can never be verified.
This is yet another example
of the Trump Administration's
failure to control the EPA,
who too often base regulations
on junk science, or real science
that can never be double-checked.