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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.
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.
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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.
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.
You have to start somewhere.
Even if there is such a bias, what of it? It is not like imposing this rule on the EPA today would prevent imposing it on other departments/agencies later.
Besides, the opponents of the idea do not oppose it on the grounds, that it is not going far enough. Obama is not saying:"I will veto this bill unless the rule covers the entire federal government! No way, no how!!"
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If Congress is for it, it probably isn't science.
"Secret Science" must be their code words for real science.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
There is ample evidence of Ocean acidification to suggest that CO2 needs to be treated as a pollutant.
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.
"...argue that the secret science legislation would force EPA to ignore numerous studies. They say that not only do many studies contain public health or industry-submitted data that are confidential, but the legislation provides too little funding for EPA to obtain all the necessary raw data. And many studies, such as longitudinal surveys, are not realistically “reproducible,” scientific organizations worry."
_
As far as republican backed industry is concerned, anything like health and environmental issues that prevent them from doing whatever the hell they want is bad. The EPA is a big supplier of those things they hate, so if they can cripple the EPA, they get to do more things to make them money, despite it being dangerous to the public health and safety.
So yes, they are trying to pull a fast one by attempting to eliminate as much as they can.
It's kind of like a mafia lawyer trying to get the judge to throw out all witness testimony that is not 1st hand police testimony, or all evidence that has been touched or operated by someone other than a cop. So Uncle Johns being in the room and seeing Vinnie the Slasher cut up the victim gets thrown out, along with the fingerprints from the door because Uncle John used it to run out screaming for the cops, of which he is not one of. And forget witness protection also, you can't hide the names and address of Uncle Johns family either, since that kind of confidential information isn't "transparent" enough...
Again, yes, it's a scam attempting to cloak itself in respectability. (Or more like trying to sneak sarin into the theater by hiding it in an empty first aid kit wrapped in bandages.)
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.
Pollutant = A resource in the wrong place, as in "do not pollute my scotch with water". The evidence of harm caused by 1/2 trillion tons of CO2 in the wrong place may not be clear to you, but it is to almost everyone who has actually looked at it with a scientific eye. AFAICT the senate republicans think an appropriate mission for the EPA is to STFU and mow the whitehouse lawn.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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?
"Outside experts" of course being another name for "lobbyists".
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
There's not only plenty of scientific evidence, there's also legislation and a Supreme Court ruling supporting it. Just because your belief system rules out the facts, it doesn't make them any less true.
One mention of the EPA and we're already at BIG GUBERMENT CO2 neck collars. I can't believe someone so dumb can use a computer, let alone reads /.
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.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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 reason people don't want EPA to cover CO2 is not because of science, but because it potentially eats into oil and energy profits.
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.
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.
California, the land where silica(glass) causes cancer? The place which passed a physically impossible laws about electricity? That wretched hive of clueless nutballs? I'm all for cutting CO2, and fossil fuel usage, but basing anything legal off California is asking for trouble.(I am assuming everyone here knows how to google to find what I've referenced)
Who knew the movie Idiocracy was real.
Of course it allows it - but does it *fund* it? That's the chloroform in the rag. Unless the original study authors spent the money up front to carefully anonymize the data, it all has to be re-hashed from scratch to ensure that no identifying data is released to the public, but that all the records are intact. That costs money, and I'm going to bet a donut that there's not a single cent allocated to pay for that data. And every single study would be required to be anonymized whether or not anyone else is going to look at it. It's a ruse to make access to the research which is out there simply unaffordable to use. And if you can't pay for it, you can't cite it.
Game. Match. Set.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
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.
All Court Judgements are conditional.
The Judgement against OJ for beating those memorabilia collectors up was conditional on there not being new evidence that Prosecutors made the whole thing up.
Given the evidence available in 2007, the Courts ruled global warming was real and CO32 was a pollutant. Since then the evidence has just grown. Temperature's spiking (9 of the hottest 10 years are within the past decade), the ice caps are melting, and the counter-points you're talking about are all fantasy from a Think Tank of wannabe social scientists. From their website, they seem to have a couple actual Education experts, a couple guys with bachelors degrees, and a Philosopher.
And if this was not the case, don't you think every coal plant in the country would be appealing Massachusetts vs. EPA for all they're worth?
It is your reading comprehension that needs adjusting. The departments don't create the law. They enforce it. That is what I said. It was Congress that created the department as the Constitution allows.
Again, it isn't the EPA creating the regulations. It is Congress. The EPA is merely enforcing the regulations that Congress created. If you want to know the specific act it is NEPA. I leave it as an exercise for you to look it up.
The rest of your post is totally nonsense repeating the same line you refused to understand... Namely that Congress created the EPA and Congress has the power to destroy it. But know the consequences when you do. Things like the Gulf spill will go unaddressed. The Freedom Enterprises MCHM spill would have no legal recourse. The impoundment failure in Tennessee would be common place. Not to mention Love Canal...
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.
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...
This point was rebutted by the people who wrote the general welfare clause, in Federalist 41.
To paraphrase: But what color can your objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars.
Essentially, if the "general welfare" clause included things like a militia to defend the homeland, and post offices, as you presumably maintain, why even bother listing them separately?
Wonder what the public key field is for?
Judicial decisions do affect how things are interpreted when they are vague and when different parts of the law and constitution conflict with each other. And a great many things in the constitution are vague.
The civil war was entirely about slavery, because the primary reason the union was in danger of breaking up was because of slavery. Most other issues for the war ultimately led back to slavery as the origin as well. It is true that many in the north were content to just continue being conciliatory and many weren't even concerned that much with slavery. But there was a rising tide as well and many were sick and tired of letting the south get their way out of fear of a union breakup (for example, the fugitive slave act). The fight over whether or not the new western states could have slavery was the hot issue that caused various pro-secession states to mobilize and start taking over union forts. The leaders of the confederacy made it clear in their speeches that the fight was about the right to own slaves, even if in the north the view was to maintain the union.
The Marshall court allowed that the executive was allowed to have regulatory powers in order to implement the law (ie, the law is broad and the executive fills in the details). Later courts have refined this in various ways. The EPA was created by an act of congress, and it was not the first agency to have regulatory duties. If congress disapproves then they can create more restrictive laws, dictate the fines, etc.
No, secession was entirely about slavery. The war never would have broke out if South Carolina hadn't attacked Fort Sumter. Had that not happened, an entirely different outcome was not only possible, but likely. Lincoln and the north was doing everything possible to remedy the situation without war. That failed when the south attacked a union fort.
And the Supreme Court also struck down several of these regulatory practices declaring the delegation of powers as implemented being excessive and unconstitutional. See Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U.S. 388 and Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 (1935). and Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U.S. 238 (1936)
The EPA is and has been operating outside the confines of the law in regard to executive authority. BTW, the executive authority and congressional delegation of powers which follow along reach only so far as implementing the laws as passed. What the EPA does is extend and recreate passed laws- especially with the Carbon emissions. Here we have a government agency who suddenly decided something that was never previously considered a pollutant (note, not a newly discovered substance or a derivative or a previously known pollutant) is now a pollutant and expanded their powers and the law to encompass something which it never has before all without any constitutional interaction of congress. Laws have been struck down for less not to mention the constant changing of the regulation being a post facto law in and of itself.
If congress had said, killing puppies was illegal and all the EPA did was ban any way you could kill a puppy, that would fall in line with the executive authority the marshal court saw. But what the EPA is doing is taking a law and saying whatever we can imagine to fall under this umbrella- even if it did not fall there previously or no one ever envisioned it being involve, the EPA can and will regulate it and change those regulations at their own will completely independent of congress or constitutional authority.
"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 ?
Why do you assume outside scientists are republican? I'm not but I have a BIG problem with secret scientific data.
In theory all products of government are public domain (since the public paid for it) and this is fundamental "open and transparent 101".
Can you explain why secret data should be used to make public policy?
Need Mercedes parts ?
LOL, the only place Michael Mann's reputation has suffered is climate science deniers eyes. His reputation in scientific circles is doing just fine.
Well, people have survived in terrorist captivity, but that doesn't mean that being in terrorist captivity is completely OK with me. It is about the quality of life of the Coral. I'm guessing you aren't about to start ingesting large amounts of it, but somehow you are fine with subjecting the poor innocent coral to it. For shame!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
>That being said, what exactly is your problem with requiring all information the EPA uses to set policies be open to the public and able to survive scientific scrutiny?
Nobody has ANY problem with that. Including senate democrats and the president and almost every scientific organisation in the USA who ALL oppose this bill... So why do they oppose the bill then ? Did it ever occur to you that maybe the bill isn't about what the republicans say it's about ?
What it's ACTUALLY about is that the reps are desperate to prevent regulations around air pollution and climate change. The trouble is the scientific data to support such regulations are overwhelming. So they are trying to exclude huge swaths of completely legitimate science from consideration. Specifically any science that has any part of it's data covered by patient privilege. That would be just about every large public health study ever done.
What they want to do is to stop the EPA from using the exact same, perfectly legitimate, science that is used daily by biologists, pharmaceutical companies and more.
Don't you find it odd that this is limited to the EPA while so many others use the same studies, including the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry ? Surely if the EPA cannot regulate something based on these studies then big pharma shouldn't be able to get a drug approved based on them, and the FDA shouldn't be allowing approvals based on studies like this.
Studies which are ALSO covered by patient privilege make up almost the entirety of biomedical research, it's just a fact of life when you're dealing with studies involving people.
Why are they legitimate science when Bayer uses them but NOT when the EPA uses them ?
I'll tell you why: because Bayer is a campaign contributor and the EPA is somebody that pisses campaign contributors off.
The science involved is all perfectly legitimate and in line with the scientific method. The "secret science" name is a propaganda term with no real truth to it intended to disguise what wall street's representatives are trying to really do.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
>It's people like you who are the reason these reports come out saying people in the US have an abysmal knowledge of history.
What did you expect. Republicans support republican politicians -even AFTER they recently proved that the foreign minister of Iran knows the US constitution (and it's definition of treason and the laws passed based on that definition) better than the republicans in the Senate do.
And if ever you needed proof that congress is now a law unto themselves... had ANY citizens written that letter about the Iran negotiations they would have been sent to jail for three years for treason. The SOLE reason the writers of THIS letter aren't being prosecuted right now is that they are senators - the law does not make an exception for Senators (in fact - exactly the opposite), they just (correctly) assumed that the police and prosecutors would.
So are you surprized when Republican voters who shout constitution all the time turn out to have no idea what is in it or what it means ? Of course not, the senators they elect don't even know it !
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
But according to some nuts, under the constitution the feds can't do anything except manage wars.
I'm NOT one of the "nuts" you mention -- I don't think we really want to go back to the "original meaning" and forget everything that happened since.
But your post is full of a lot of inaccuracies. For one, most of those "nuts" want to restrict the Constitution to the enumerated powers, which include a lot of things other than wars. They just have a more strict interpretation of certain clauses there, like "regulating commerce."
The constitution as it existed in 1781 is not the same as it is today.
The Constitution didn't exist in 1781. It was drafted in 1787 and enacted in 1789.
People forget all the amendments, all the judicial decisions,
Here's where the "nuts" differ from you. They do NOT forget the amendments, since the amendment process is specifically authorized in the Constitution itself. The various court decisions you refer to have often "reinterpreted" the Constitution to mean very different things than it originally did, though. You may think those "reinterpretations" are important, but it is a somewhat different thing from a formal amendment process.
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.
This is where you go off your rocker completely. Nobody "overturned the Constitution" with the Civil War. The Constitution after the Civil War was in effect after the Civil War the same way it was before the Civil War.
So how was slavery ended? A formal amendment process to the Constitution resulting in the 13th Amendment. The 14th and 15th Amendments provided further clarification about rights after abolition.
Once again, nobody "overturned the Constitution" -- it was amended using the exact process described explicitly in Article V of the original Constitution enacted in 1789.
As for your claim about a "strong centralized federal government," you have to wait until the 20th century really. The Supreme Court kept reining in the federal government according to fairly traditional interpretations of enumerated powers well into the early 20th century.
Think about it this way -- you remember Prohibition? It required a Constitutional amendment to enact, and then another to repeal.
Now, compare that to the prohibition of other drugs that occurred later, e.g., marijuana, etc. No Constitutional amendment required. Amazing! Why not? The Constitution was fundamentally changed in the late 1930s due to a series of Supreme Court decisions that rapidly and greatly expanded the powers of the federal government (arguably due to pressure from the Executive), allowing things like the Interstate Commerce Clause and the General Welfare Clause to be used for just about anything... from Social Security and Medicare to workers' rights acts, non-discrimination, etc. All of this could have been (and WAS) ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the early 20th century... but then they just stopped.
Effectively, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, the Constitution went from a system of "enumerated powers" and limited government to one where "anything goes" for the federal governm