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Senate Advances "Secret Science" Bill, Sets Up Possible Showdown With President
sciencehabit writes: Republicans in Congress appear to be headed for a showdown with the White House over controversial "secret science" legislation aimed at changing how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses scientific studies. A deeply divided Senate panel yesterday advanced a bill that would require EPA to craft its policies based only on public data available to outside experts. The House of Representatives has already passed a similar measure. But Democrats and science groups have harshly criticized the approach, and the White House has threatened a veto.
The scientific case for regulating CO2 as a pollutant is completely, utterly, and totally irrelevant.
The Supreme Court ruled that the agency is legally required to regulate CO2 back in 2007, and the Supreme Court is by definition right on all points of law. Buch was able to put off actually regulating the dang things, so the Obama administration didn't have draft regs ready until '10, but legal case for regulating CO2 is decided.
Every single study which involves health records would be forbidden to be used, because the RAW data is not available to the public. It's the perfect knot - previous law prevents the release of personally identifiable medical data, and this law makes it illegal to base any regulation on any study for which the raw data (in this case, personally identifiable - as it must be able to be 100% independently verified) is not released to the public.
This is about neutering the EPA's ability to "prove" that any particular pollutant causes harm to humans. If you can't provide the raw data that asbestos has led to lung cancer - patient records going back decades - you aren't allow to regulate it. Black lung? Chromium compounds in drinking water? Sorry, unless you publically release the medical records of every single person in every study you cite, it's "secret data" and junk science.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
One of the effects of the bill will be to make it impossible to use data from large scale public health studies. The raw data is secret for privacy reasons and for practical purposes impossible to replicate. For example the highly respected Framingham Heart Study has been running since 1948; under the terms of the bill its results couldn't be used in setting policy because the data are simply impossible to replicate.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Why do people keep saying shit like this?
It's the Congress that created the EPA. It's the Congress that funds them. It's the Executive that controls them in accordance with the laws passed by... Wait for it... CONGRESS. All that based on the "General Welfare" clause of the Constitution.
Or maybe you are suggesting that control of commons should be relinquished to the corporations?
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
The terms of the bill covers this situation and the results from that study would be allowed.
because there isn't and your reading of the US constitution fails basic comprehension.
While this general welfare clause has been expanded over the years, it still fails on several levels. The courts have only allowed the general welfare clause to be used with the taxing and spending powers of congress. No court and no competent constitutional authority has ever said it extends congress's powers to create departments that can make law independent of congress or constitutional processes nor have they used the clause to establish fines and/or imprisonment terms to anyone. There is simply no constitutional basis for it.
And the general welfare clause would allow this to happen only if every single regulation, fine, or punishment was voted on, passed and signed by congress and the president. Do you see the disconnect here?
Can congress create a department of the second amendment, staff it with a bunch of people who create regulation saying you have to own at least 3 guns per person in the household, molest your children at least once in their life time, spin in circles twice before taking a piss all without congressional action? Can the EPA make any of these regulations? The answer is no to all because there is no constitutional authority for it. The only difference is how silly the regulations might be but the general welfare claim can be made just the same.
If congress had free reign over anything it could construe to be in the interest or general welfare, then why is Abortion out of their grasp? In order for your presumption to be true, they must be able to create a department of abortion that could impose a tax penalty or jail terms on everyone who performs or haves an abortion. But that simply is not possible because the general welfare clause does not do what you think it doe. It would however, allow congress to tax and spend money either encouraging or discouraging abortions.
Maybe you should think a bit before posting. Perhaps study a bit on what you are posting about.
The wording would make new analysis of 3rd party data illegal. It would shut down lots of legitimate science that's done on license. You can verify it, but you have to pay for access to the data. If this was a budget bill increasing funding for research that would "buy" the data from private sources, that would be good, and undebatable. But for something designed to limit science and reduce learning, there is room for debate.
Learn to love Alaska
SCOTUS ruled that CO2 meets the definition of "pollutant" in the Clean Air Act, and that EPA therefore has to define a regulatory mechanism. They did not rule on "science" - they ruled on law. EPA must use science in the manner prescribed in the CAA to come up with regulations, and has fairly broad discretion (subject to lawsuits regarding its interpretation of the CAA by any and all participants) regarding how to do that.
Many of the things that appear to be "out of control" EPA by anti- (and even some pro-) regulation types are in fact required by their enabling legislation. For instance, when setting air quality standards, EPA is prohibited by the Clean Air Act (as interpreted by several courts) from considering the feasibility and cost of actually achieving the standard. They can only consider documented health effects, and whether compliance with the new standard(s) would avoid or minimize those effects with a margin of safety. That may seem unreasonable to some, but it's the law.
Well, the Great Lakes were pretty much sludge before the EPA started busting balls, so maybe not so ridiculous after all. You live anywhere near Lake Erie? Southern Lake Michigan? Before the EPA, most American cities were starting to look like downtown Bejing. I remember going to LA in the early '80s and the air was green. Today, you go to LA, and with the same number of cars, the air is actually breathable without mask.
There, that's better.
You are welcome on my lawn.
"There is ample evidence of Ocean acidification to suggest that CO2 needs to be treated as a pollutant."
Then I'm sure you'll have no problem providing that evidence of this and of any harm..
I can tell you ahead of time corals have genes that switch on to handle heat and co2 and they have survived 7000 ppm CO2 in the past and that this is not affecting reefs which by some miracle are only dying near man where he pollutes; in the open ocean coral is fine.
Tree of life with time scale
http://rs79.vrx.net/opinions/i...
Historic co2
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...
Corals can turn certain genes on and off to cope with heat
http://www.sciencemag.org/cont...
Dr. Bruce Carlson produced a wonderful video demonstrating the resilient capacity of coral reefs if humans would simply stopped interfering with nature.
http://www.advancedaquarist.co...
Palau's coral reefs surprisingly resistant to ocean acidification
http://nsf.gov/news/news_summ....
Total reef losses due to climate change are unlikely
http://www.advancedaquarist.co...
For cold water corals, warming is beating acidification to drive a growth spurt
http://arstechnica.com/science...
Need Mercedes parts ?
>One of the effects of the bill will be to make it impossible to use data from large scale public health studie
That's not an effect, that's the GOAL. The Republicans have a problem preventing sensible regulations around things like air pollution and climate change backed up by solid scientific research - so they are trying to make the science that backs it up illegal.
Science that is not "secret" by any definition that applies to the scientific method at all - which is why scientists around the US has denounced the bill. There is no problem with reproducability at all.
What does put SOME access restriction on these large public health studies is that, because of when they were done, they were not anonymous. The only "secret" bit about them is confidential patient information. What the republicans want to do is exclude from scientific research all data that is covered by patient privilege.
Which is insane.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *