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.

Comments

Toad

[For a Free Internet]

Secret toad controls Congreff. Secret toad has poison webs in its eyes. Secret toad is behind all NATO exercises and World Bank. Secret toad controls air with secret toad poison rays and mind controff.

Why is this even a debate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Making decisions based on research that can't be independently validated or audited is the very definition of junk science. I mean, I know that the pay journals would love to see open access go away, but that's just their flawed business model talking.

Re:Why is this even a debate?

[Darinbob]

EPA is not necessarily a science creating organization, it's a policy creation and enforcement organization. It doesn't necessarily have to have solid science established and well accepted before it is allowed to make regulation. It gets input from many sources, some of which are lies, and then forms a policy. Under some administrations it errs on the side of caution, and with other administrations it errs on the side of profit.

As in, there is evidence that chemical A may cause cancer or is killing off some fisheries. One side wishes that to be enough to limit use of chemical A or to require safety measures against spills. The other side wishes to continue using chemical A until there is absolutely undeniable proof (which will never occur). But the EPA is not creating the science here, instead it is acting in the public's interest based upon existing scientific studies and evidence.

Re:Why is this even a debate?

[mi]

I've read it.

So cite the parts you find offensive...

The Conservatives are happy to kill innocents

Bravo! This sentence alone explains everything about you. Very well put, except for one minor nit: In such context, the word is spelled KKKonservatives. Otherwise perfect.

Or you don't know how studies are done.

I do. And one of the requirements for a scientific finding, is that it be reproducible .

Re:Why is this even a debate?

[Cytotoxic]

I know that is the talking point they've decided to go with, but it simply isn't true. I ran the lab for an 8 center trial covering nearly 9,000 cancer patients. We didn't get any personally identifying data - just a number. (unless the nurse of phlebotomist made a mistake and wrote the patient name on the vial). Our couple-million data points were all tied to a number. The number tied back to a list of data about the patient - not including anything personally identifying.

I can't speak for every research situation, but claiming that medical research requires violations of patient confidentiality is specious. It clearly does not in most cases. I suppose if you were studying something rare like breast cancer among post-operative transgendered males you might run into some difficulties with identities being discoverable, but I don't think that's enough to claim the whole thing to be null and void.

Don't single out EPA

[confused one]

If they're going to create such a rule for EPA, then it should also apply to NIH, FDA, DOE, and so on. If they don't make it universal, then they're showing an obvious bias and clearly pushing an agenda which is attempting to influence specific science.

Re:Don't single out EPA

[Chalnoth]

Except that it's often surprising how easy it is to de-anonymize data. I would definitely not want my medical data made public, even with anonymization, because I know that some clever person may later come up with a way to link my identity to my medical data using a method that the original researchers never considered.

As for temperature data, the nice thing there is that we have independent data sets. For temperature records, for example, we have satellite measurements which are fully public.

In actuality, this restriction would have essentially zero impact on the scientific conclusions: it's just a way to attempt to block action on climate change. People could say, "But hey, some fraction of this data was gleaned from private sources," and use that as an attempt to throw out the whole thing, despite the fact that removing the private data doesn't change the overall conclusion.

How is this a bad thing?

[Snotnose]

I RTFA and don't get the controversy. Of course the data used to form regulations should be easily available to everybody. The only reason to use secret data is you want to hide something.

Not trying to troll here, just not seeing the other side.

Re:If Congress is for it

[Black Parrot]

An earlier version of this general effort used language that would forbid reference to models in policymaking.

Presumably written by some clown club that doesn't know that models are what science produces. They were transparently trying to outlaw use of the computer models that climate science relies so heavily on. (And other branches of science, but climate science is the branch that's driving corruption^w campaign donations right now.)

Re:The all-or-nothing fallacy

[sumdumass]

Requiring them to publish the "science" they are basing their rulings on is influencing science?

Yes, it is influencing the science.

If you know what they know, you can check the science, if it is bad science, you can correct it. If it is good science, you can improve it. If you cannot improve it, you can accept it and champion it. And when you make your science available to others to do the same, the EPA can then use it too. See how all that influence is possible?

The argument against influencing the science is essentially- stay out of this because we want it to mean what we want it to mean so we can justify doing what we want to do.

Many people will ignore this reality and focus on politics- those evil republicans only want to stop the EPA from doing what we want them to do. To them, it is not about the science, it is about doing what they want the EPA to do.

PS

[TapeCutter]

Shouldn't we want them to be basing policy on publicly available data?

This is an excellent example of how well-crafted political propaganda works. The act of introducing the bill implies the EPA are not already basing policy on publicly available data, opposing the bill implies you want to hide something from the public. Even if the bill fails to pass, it has already succeeded as a propaganda piece.

Make no mistake, this is a far-right attempt to put Science on a short leash.

Re:PS

[TheGratefulNet]

the year is 2015. this is being pushed by republicans. it has the word 'science' in it.

therefore, I already know all I need to know about this.

for some things, you have to think deeply. but not for all things.

does anyone truly and honestly believe the republicans are (these days, at least) pro-science???

(what is that saying about ducks walking and quacking, again?)

Re:The all-or-nothing fallacy

[PopeRatzo]

I'm in favor of having information publicly available (for all departments, not just the EPA) and the argument about policy being made on secret information is compelling.

The composition of the toxic cocktail that's used in horizontal fracturing is kept away from the public because it's a "trade secret". Do you believe the EPA should not be able to restrict the high-pressure injection of toxic chemicals into the aquifer because the information isn't "public"?

Or are people going to have to be able to strip paint with their drinking water before they'll be able to find out what's in it? Because freedom?

I'm in favor of having information publicly available (for all departments, not just the EPA)

Look, I'm a big fan of Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning too, but when you have corporations with vested interests in keeping information away from the public, forcing the government to only be able to act on information that's public will only let them run further amok.

Maybe it's because I'm old enough to remember what the Great Lakes were like before the EPA. Gigantic bodies of "fresh" water that are too toxic to support life can really start to sour your opinion on the whole "get the government off corporations' backs" idea.

Re:EPA has exceeded safe limits, needs curbing

[Darinbob]

There is a very clear constitutional basis. The environment is very key to interstate commerce without any doubt. If you could confine the environment to every state's borders then perhaps things would be different, and Ohio could be full of burning rivers as long as Illinois is not affected.

But according to some nuts, under the constitution the feds can't do anything except manage wars. The constitution as it existed in 1781 is not the same as it is today. People forget all the amendments, all the judicial decisions, and the great big massive war we had that overturned the constitution so that slavery could finally be abolished which resulted in a strong centralized federal government no matter what the hell the founding fathers who owned slaves would have wanted.

Re:EPA has exceeded safe limits, needs curbing

[NicBenjamin]

Your reading implies that Congress can do pretty much whatever the fuck it wants if it deems it to be for the General Welfare. That pretty much flied in the face of the idea of limited government, which is the central pillar of our Constitution.

Depends on how limited you want the limits to be. If you want the government to be small enough to drown in a bathtub, then yes, it flies in your personal idea of a limited government.

OTOH, the Founders were explicitly creating a less limited government. They said flat-out it needed to be more powerful the the Articles of Confederation government because it had to be strong enough to keep the Brits out.

If there'd been pollution in their day they almost certainly would have added inter-state pollution to the list of things the Feds had the right to regulate, because part of the point of their Constitution was keeping the states from fighting each-other over trivial shit. And you can bet your ass that if Pennsylvania had been able to have all the benefits of coal power, with none of the pollution, simply by siting the plants upwind from the rest of the state they'd have done that shit; New York would have responded by calling out the militia...