Credit: Ralf Vetterle Pixabay

The EPA is reportedly on the verge of restricting the science that EPA can use in decisionmaking and I’m livid. This is a move that serves no purpose other than to prevent the EPA from carrying out its mission of protecting public health and the environment. If Pruitt’s proposal looks anything like House Science Committee Chairman’s HONEST Act or its predecessor the Secret Science Act, we know it will be nonsensical and dangerous for our nation’s ability to use science to protect people.  Those bills required that all raw data, models, code, and other materials from scientific studies be made available to the public before EPA could use it and it had sweeping scope over EPA actions, covering “risk, exposure, or hazard assessment, criteria document, standard, limitation, regulation, regulatory impact analysis, or guidance.”

Here are the top ways EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s Trojan horse “transparency” proposal is fundamentally flawed:

It fundamentally misrepresents how science works.

You might not need a refresher on how science works, but it’s clear that Administrator does. Here’s a quick run-down: In order to be […]