WASHINGTON - Two of Texas' most prominent members of Congress squared off moments ago on the House floor as members prepare to vote on a bill Republicans say will end the EPA's reliance on scientific studies whose data aren't fully available to the public.
The Secret Science Reform Act of 2014 would require the Environmental Protection Agency to base its rules only on scientific studies whose data can be shared in sufficient details that other researchers can duplicate the research. A vote is expected within the hour, and this post will be updated with its results.
Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, is chairman of the House science committee and from that perch he has targeted repeatedly the EPA's use of two landmark studies that have linked air pollution and health problems for humans. The EPA has relied on those studies - conducted by Harvard University and the American Cancer Society - over the years to write rules penalizing air pollution.
To Smith, the question is simple: Science that the government uses to restrict commerce or impose other regulatory burdens on burdens - especially under the aggressive clean air agenda pursued by the Obama Administration - should be fully available to other scientists, including those who work for businesses subject to the rules, who want to duplicate the research.
'It stops the EPA's use of unverifiable science,' Smith said in kicking the hour-long debate off Wednesday just after 1 p.m. EST.
But Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas and the ranking member on the Science panel, used none of the measured language Smith had used in opening the debate.
'This bill does not permit me to mince words,' Johnson said. 'It's an insidious attack on the EPA ... and the culmination of one of the one anti-science and anti-health campaigns I've ever witnessed in my 22 years in Congress. It is born of the Republicans' long-standing obsession with two seminal scientific studies conducted by Harvard and the American Cancer Society.'
The Science committee took the unprecedented step of subpoenaing the data for these studies last year, but while the EPA has turned over cartloads of documents, it says it cannot comply with the full demands. In part, that's because the custodians of those records are the institutions who conducted them in the first place.
Both those institutions say that fully revealing the data used in their studies would violate the privacy of individuals who were part of their decades-long studies.
Smith and others who champion the bill say it's about transparency - and about fairness to the businesses who are regulated by the EPA.
Rep. David Schweikert, R-Arizona, said there's another benefit of the proposed law. By opening the science up to the public, its conclusions will be vetted - and possibly improved - by wider repetition and innovation.
But beneath those concerns lay a significant frustration with the Obama Administration's use of the EPA to impose regulations on air quality, greenhouse gas emissions and water rules, among other things.
But Rush D. Holt, the only member to hold a Ph.D. in physics, said the Republicans' arguments are wrong. 'It's a blatant misunderstanding of how science operates,' he said. '... And it's an affront to science.'
Entities 0 Name: EPA Count: 8 1 Name: Smith Count: 4 2 Name: Congress Count: 2 3 Name: Obama Administration Count: 2 4 Name: House Count: 2 5 Name: American Cancer Society Count: 2 6 Name: Johnson Count: 1 7 Name: David Schweikert Count: 1 8 Name: D-Dallas Count: 1 9 Name: Lamar Smith Count: 1 10 Name: Rush D. Holt Count: 1 11 Name: WASHINGTON Count: 1 12 Name: R-Texas Count: 1 13 Name: Harvard Count: 1 14 Name: Texas Count: 1 15 Name: Harvard University Count: 1 16 Name: Eddie Bernice Johnson Count: 1 17 Name: R-Arizona Count: 1 18 Name: Environmental Protection Agency Count: 1 19 Name: The Science committee Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/14HnkJq Title: Republicans' 'Secret Science' Bill Isn't What You Think Description: Republicans, while still pretend-raging at the "duplicity" revealed by Jonathan Gruber, are preparing for a House vote tomorrow on the Secret Science Reform Act, which aims to do one thing while purporting to do something else entirely. Congress may not be productive, but at least it has a sense of humor.
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