The Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to publicize scientific data used to craft regulations will provide credibility for the agency’s rule-making responsibilities, according to a report from a free market group based in Washington, D.C.
The rule will help ensure the underlying science supporting regulations is valid and reduces the possibility that a regulation raises costs while not containing public health benefits, Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) noted in a report Tuesday before the EPA meets to discuss the rule. The report also seeks to dispel what CEI believes are misconceptions about the rule.
“This is a government accountability issue,” Angela Logomasini, a senior fellow at CEI, wrote in the report. “Transparency in regulatory science is valuable, achievable, and necessary for making sure important regulations work and provide the benefits they claim.” Former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt proposed the rule change in April to make science more transparent.
Pruitt proposed the rule to ensure the EPA is employing the scientific process to determine new regulations. The rule’s goal should not be to determine how many regulations we have on the books. Regulations must be based on sound science to achieve public health and environmental goals, the report notes. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: Scott Pruitt Will End EPA’s Use Of ‘Secret Science’ To Justify Regulations)
The report cited one misconception suggesting that the rule aims to ban the use of scientific studies unless all their raw data are made available in public and can be reproduced. Some opponents claim science will be practically eliminated from all decision-making processes. Logomasini’s report attempts to dismiss those claims.
The EPA’s new rule would encourage studies to be made publicly available whenever practical, and notes that not all data can be openly accessible and that restricted access to some data may be necessary, the report notes. It would also direct the agency to work with universities and private firms to make information available.
Conservatives have criticized the EPA in the past for relying on scientific studies that published findings but not the underlying data. Democrats and environmental activists have challenged past attempts to bring transparency to studies used in rule making.
Texas Republican Rep. Lamar Smith pushed legislation to end the use of what he calls “secret science” at the EPA. Pruitt instituted another policy in 2017 backed by Smith against EPA-funded scientists serving on agency advisory boards.
Pruitt’s pending science transparency policy mirrors Smith’s HONEST Act, which passed the House in March 2017. Smith’s office was pleased to hear Pruitt was adopting another policy the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology chairman championed.
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