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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.
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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.
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."
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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.)
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.)
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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?
Because this is a transparent attempt to rein in the EPA on the grounds of 'science'. Seems OK as a sound bite, doesn't quite work well in the ugly real world. As noted in TFA, there are two major, practical objections:
- The EPA doesn't get enough funding to do all of the studies by themselves. And there seems to be no mechanism in the proposed legislation to fix that little oversight. So it becomes an issue of perfect rather than practical. Sure, it would be best if everything were publicly funded and every bit of data published on the Internet, but it is arguably better if some 'imperfect' data is used rather than the very limited amount of data that is openly published.
- Longitudinal data, by definition, isn't 'repeatable'. You don't get to rewind the tape (if you are unfamiliar with this analogy, look up 'VCR' and similar ancient technology).
The way this bill is crafted makes it perfectly clear that good science is not the goal. Emasculating the EPA is.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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.
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 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?
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
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...
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...
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