House Approves Bill To Force Public Release of EPA Science (ap.org)

schwit1 quotes a report from Associated Press: House Republicans are taking aim at the Environmental Protection Agency, targeting the way officials use science to develop new regulations. A bill approved Wednesday by the GOP-controlled House would require that data used to support new regulations to protect human health and the environment be released to the public. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said "the days of 'trust me' science are over," adding that the House bill would restore confidence in the EPA's decision-making process. Connecticut Rep. Elizabeth Esty and other Democrats said the bill would cripple EPA's ability to conduct scientific research based on confidential medical information and risks privacy violations by exposing sensitive patient data. The bill was approved 228-194 and now goes to the Senate. According to The Hill, "The bill would also require that any scientific studies be replicable, and allow anyone who signs a confidentiality agreement to view redacted personal or trade information in data."

Comments

Re: Sounds great!

[LeftCoastThinker]

Pretty sure the government can appropriate whatever it wants in the public interest. Corporations can either play ball and get paid or bend over. 90% of the content on Elsevyr was created by researchers paid by public grants anyway. Who the hell do they think they are?

Scientific results are supposed to be distributed for all to review. If there are a few corporations preventing this, the next time the Dims are in power, how about they take them over in the national interest, seeing as how we are paying billions of dollars for the research that they are trying to lock up and sell at exorbitant rates...

The problem is this is not the core issue. The core issue is that there is a lot of bad science steering the ship at the EPA (CO2 is not a pollutant, the puddle in your back yard is not a wetlands, the government does not own the rain that falls on your property, etc.) and sunlight is the best disinfectant. Trust but verify.