A group of eight CPR Member Scholars today submitted a letter to Reps. David Schweikert and Suzanne Bonamici, the chair and ranking member, respectively, of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology's Subcommittee on the Environment. The letter levels a series of powerful criticisms at Schweikert's proposed "Secret Science Reform Act," yet another in a series of bills from House Republicans aimed at gumming up efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency to exercise authority granted it by Congress to protect the environment.
Schweikert and his cosponsors maintain that the EPA is adopting regulations based on science that should be available to the public, but is not. That's true. But the bill steers clear of the actual problem, and instead focuses on harassing EPA regulators. The real problem with secret science in the regulatory process is that industry science is carefully shielded from public scrutiny by statute. By contrast, the studies Schweikert goes after are typically published in peer-reviewed journals. As the scholars write,
H.R. 4012 threatens to undermine the scientific rigor of EPA’s decision-making while leaving the true “secret science” problem untouched. “Secret science” is indeed pervasive in some regulatory programs, yet H.R. 4012 does nothing to address the most serious problems since it inoculates from its reach existing, outdated legal provisions that tolerate the sequestration of research. For example, under Section 10(g) of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, the public and affected parties are not allowed to view the studies underlying EPA’s licensing of pesticides until after the agency’s registration decision is concluded, and even then the research is available only to the public under tightly constrained circumstances. 1 Even more problematic, as a result of aggressive trade secret claims, the research on the safety of more than 17,000 chemicals regulated by EPA under the Toxic Substances Control Act is completely insulated from public view by law. Such impediments to public access undermine independent evaluations of the evidence used by EPA in its regulation, yet they remain untouched by the very bill that promises to expose this secret science.
By contrast, H.R. 4012 targets publicly available research, much of which has been published in peer reviewed journals, as the area in need of heightened transparency. Even more perplexing, the bill tasks EPA -- not the researchers -- with the enormous task of amassing the data underlying each relevant study. If EPA is unable to summon the resources or time to access this underlying information or is otherwise unable to acquire the data, it is apparently prohibited from considering the stud(ies) in its regulatory decision.
The scholars go on to criticize the proposal because it would impose significant new costs that are "disproportionate to any plausible benefits," and "facilitate further mechanisms for harassing scientists."
The co-authors are CPR Member Scholars John Applegate, Holly Doremus, Emily Hammond, Thomas McGarity, Noah Sachs, Sidney Shapiro, Rena Steinzor and Wendy Wagner.
NRDC's John Walke live-tweeted Schweiker's hearing this morning on the bill. Take a look.
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Matthew Freeman | February 11, 2014
A group of eight CPR Member Scholars today submitted a letter to Reps. David Schweikert and Suzanne Bonamici, the chair and ranking member, respectively, of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology’s Subcommittee on the Environment. The letter levels a series of powerful criticisms at Schweikert’s proposed “Secret Science Reform Act,” yet another in […]
Anne Havemann | February 7, 2014
Anchorage, Alaska is more than 4,000 miles away from the Chesapeake Bay, yet Alaska joined 20 other states on Monday in asking a federal appeals court to overturn the EPA-led plan to restore the Bay, known as a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL). While Alaska’s interest in the Bay-wide TMDL is murky, the history of […]
Sidney A. Shapiro | February 7, 2014
The recent chemical spill disaster in West Virginia has brought into sharp focus the weak measures we have in place for safeguarding people and the environment against exposures to harmful chemicals. State and civil justice systems have helped to fill the resulting void by providing individuals who have suffered harmful exposures with an opportunity to […]
Matt Shudtz | February 4, 2014
Today, separate House committees will hold hearings that address two federal agencies’ efforts to regulate toxic chemicals. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy will hold its fifth hearing on issues arising out of ongoing efforts to reform the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Simultaneously, the House Education and Workforce […]
Anne Havemann | February 4, 2014
Every day, we are presented with more evidence of the need to inspect for environmental violations and enforce the nation’s laws. The evidence is stark in the Chesapeake Bay region where, in 2012 alone, just 17 large point sources reported illegal discharges of nitrogen totaling nearly 700,000 pounds. These violations put the watershed states behind […]
Sidney A. Shapiro | January 30, 2014
Suddenly politics in this country appears to have taken a turn toward democracy and away from markets. As we develop in a book just published by Oxford University Press, discussing economic inequality. Regulation of Wall Street proceeds apace after the investment banks and mortgage lenders sank the American economy with their recklessness as they now […]
Joseph Tomain | January 27, 2014
Recently, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a report entitled Energy Works for US: Solutions for America’s Energy Future. The data and references in the report are largely accurate, as far as they go, and the report promotes energy efficiency, which is a welcome step. Ultimately, though, the report is unreliable because it has too […]
Rena Steinzor | January 22, 2014
As people across the country and around the world watched the tableau of 300,000 West Virginians give up their drinking, cooking and bath water for days on end because an untested toxic chemical was spilled by a company that was co-founded by a twice-convicted felon, the ever-present John Boehner (R-Ohio) had pungent advice for President […]
James Goodwin | January 22, 2014
It’s time to put to bed an unfortunate myth that’s been floating around the last few weeks. The myth goes something like this: The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)—the opaque bureau within the White House charged with approving agencies’ draft regulations before they can be released to the public—has succeeded in improving the […]