Ending
secret science at EPA
By Paul Driessen
web posted April 30, 2018
Environmental Protection
Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has proposed
to end the longstanding EPA practice of using secretive, often
questionable, even deceptive science to support agency policy and regulatory
initiatives. His proposed rules will ensure that any science underlying agency
actions is transparent and publicly available for independent experts to
examine and validate – or point out its flaws.
It also responds to growing
concerns that extensive scientific research in environmental, medical
and other arenas cannot be replicated by other scientists, or is compromised
by cherry-picked data, poor research design, sloppy analysis or biased
researchers. The situation has led to calls for increased sharing of data and
methodologies, more independent peer review and other actions to weed out
problems. There is no excuse for hiding data when studies are funded by
taxpayers or used to justify regulations.
The situation has been
especially acute at EPA. As Mr. Pruitt observed, “The ability to test,
authenticate and reproduce scientific findings is vital for the integrity of the
rule making process. Americans deserve to assess the legitimacy of the science
underpinning EPA decisions that may impact their lives.”
That is particularly true for
regulations that exact millions or billions in compliance costs, affect
thousands of jobs, target industries and coal-fired electricity generators that
regulators want to close down, or seek to replace all fossil fuel use with
“renewable” energy. With the cumulative economic impact of federal regulations
reaching nearly
$2 trillion per year, research reform is absolutely essential.
We need regulation and
pollution control – but it must be based on solid, replicable, honest
science.
Congressman
Lamar Smith (R-TX) has held hearings and championed multiple bills to
address the problem. Several have been passed by the House of Representatives,
only to languish in the Senate. With courts offering little or no help,
Executive Branch action may be the only remaining solution.
Deceptive, faulty science on fine
particulate pollution (PM2.5) was the bedrock of the Obama EPA’s war on
coal. Particulates don’t just make you sick; they are directly related “to
dying sooner than you should,” EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson falsely told
Congress. There is no level “at which premature mortality effects do not
occur,” Mr. Obama’s next Administrator Gina McCarthy dishonestly testified.
At the same time they made
these claims, they were presiding over illegal experiments on
humans – including people with asthma, diabetes and heart disease – who
were subjected to eight, 30 or even 60 times more particulates per volume, for
up to two hours, than what EPA claimed are dangerous or lethal. None of them
got sick, proving that EPA’s claims were false. The agency refused to correct
its claims.
EPA took a similar stance on
mercury – asserting that power plant emissions were causing dangerously high
mercury levels in American children and pregnant women. In reality, US power
plants account for just 0.5%
of all the mercury in the air Americans breathe, and blood mercury counts
for US women and children are well below even EPA’s excessively safe levels,
according to the Centers for Disease Control.
How did EPA’s junk science,
illegal experiments and heavy-handed regulations pass muster? For one thing,
politics too often dictated the science. In addition, the agency paid more
than $180 million over a 16-year period to institutions represented by members
of its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), which often
rubberstamped studies and conclusions that failed integrity and transparency
tests.
On global
warming, EPA issued an Endangerment
Finding, which claimed emissions of (plant-fertilizing) carbon dioxide from
burning fossil fuels threatened
the health and welfare of American citizens.
It reached this conclusion by
looking only at studies and computer models from the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, while ignoring volumes
of studies by independent scientists who found no
such threat. EPA officials even told one of the agency’s own senior experts
that his studies would not be shared with agency staff and he was to cease any
further work on climate change, because his analyses “do not help the legal or
policy case for this decision” that fossil fuel CO2 emissions endanger
Americans.
EPA was also a principal
force behind the “social
cost of carbon” scheme that supposedly calculated how much CO2-driven
climate change would cost the United States and how those costs would be
reduced by slashing fossil fuel use. The alleged cost of damages began at an
arbitrary $22 per ton of carbon dioxide released in 2010, then climbed to an
equally random $30 per ton in 2013 and $40 per ton in 2016.
Incredibly, EPA modelers also
claimed they can accurately forecast global temperatures, climate and weather,
technological advances, economic development, living standards – and damages to
global civilizations and ecosystems from US carbon dioxide emissions – for
the next 300 years! Moreover, in the real world, the benefits of using
carbon-based fuels and improving crop, forest and grassland growth via higher
atmospheric CO2 levels outweigh hypothesized costs by at least 50-to-1 to as
much as 500-to-1.
Deceptive, politicized,
policy-driven “science” like this pervaded EPA regulatory actions for too
many years. Reaction to Mr. Pruitt’s corrective actions show how poorly
informed his critics can be.
* The changes will force
researchers to reveal personal or confidential information about participants in
health studies. No they won’t. Such information is not needed and can easily be
redacted.
* EPA can keep us safe from
harmful chemicals only if it takes full advantage of all available scientific
research. Public health and safety depend on ensuring that research and data
purportedly supporting it are made public and carefully reviewed by multiple
experts, to ensure accuracy and integrity. EPA will take full advantage of all
available research that passes these tests. Tax-funded studies should all be public!
* The rules will exclude
studies that rely on outside funding sources which limit access to underlying
data. Those studies should be excluded. The funders need to revise their
policies to ensure integrity.
* The rules will exclude so
much research that they will endanger public health. Not so. The only studies
EPA will likely not see is what researchers know will not pass muster, and thus
do not submit. The real danger comes from research that is based on shoddy
data, algorithms, models and analyses that past researchers have been able to
keep secret. That is precisely what the rules will ferret out and correct.
* Pruitt has removed
scientists who receive EPA funding from participating in advisory committees.
As noted above, those scientists had received millions of dollars in exchange
for supporting EPA analyses, initiatives and regulations. Pruitt wants input
from experts whose views can be trusted.
* Pruitt has criticized the
peer review process. Too many peer reviews have been conducted by closed
circles of associated scientists who rely on government grants and support
regulatory decisions to maintain funding. Some refused
to share data with experts who might critique their work – or worked to keep
contrarian research out of scientific journals. The fact that some journals
rarely require access to or review of underlying data further demonstrates why
the peer review process also needs to be reformed.
Too many past EPA policies,
policy-driven research and regulations have been employed to force the nation
to abandon fossil fuels that still supply 80% of US and global energy – and
switch to expensive, intermittent, unreliable wind and solar energy
installations that will require unsustainable amounts of land and raw
materials, while destroying wildlife habitats and slaughtering birds and bats
by the millions.
Those actions also killed
numerous jobs and left many communities impoverished. Simply put, the danger to
Americans’ health and welfare, livelihoods and living standards is regulations
imposed in response to secretive, sloppy, substandard science that has ill-served
EPA and the nation.
Ethics charges against Mr.
Pruitt should be evaluated with all this in mind – and while acknowledging that
members of Congress who are railing against him never complained about Lisa
Jackson or Gina McCarthy’s CASAC payment abuses, illegal experiments on human
test subjects, false testimony about particulates, EPA-orchestrated
sue-and-settle lawsuits that imposed billions in regulations while enriching
environmentalist groups … and junk-science regulations that cost the United
States incalculable billions of dollars, brought no environmental benefits, and
impaired the welfare of millions of people.
Pruitt’s reforms are long
overdue. Honest politicians, journalists and voters will applaud him and them.
Other government agencies should initiate similar science and rulemaking
reforms. 
Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the
Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org)
and author of books and articles on energy and environmental policy.