{"id":22555,"date":"2018-05-04T01:00:38","date_gmt":"2018-05-04T05:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=22555"},"modified":"2018-05-04T09:44:09","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T13:44:09","slug":"mr-pruitts-proposed-science-transparency-rule-greenlighting-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2018\/05\/mr-pruitts-proposed-science-transparency-rule-greenlighting-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Mr. Pruitt\u2019s Proposed \u201cScience Transparency\u201d Rule: Greenlighting Industry?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"(Beyond Pesticide<\/em>s, May 4, 2018)\u00a0Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt proposed a new rule,<\/a> on April 24, that, if adopted, will restrict the use of certain kinds of science research in the agency\u2019s writing of regulations. Titled \u201cStrengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science,\u201d the rule will permit EPA to consider only research studies for which the underlying data are publicly available when considering new \u201csignificant\u201d regulations \u2014 typically, those estimated to impose costs of $100 million or more. Supporters of the rule say\u00a0that EPA has, in crafting regulations in the past, relied on \u201csecret science\u201d \u2014 studies for which the underlying data cannot necessarily be accessed by members of the public.<\/p>\n

At face value, this may sound reasonable. Administrator Pruitt and proponents call the proposed rule<\/a> a plus for transparency that will boost public confidence in the science bases of EPA decision making. \u201cToday is a red-letter day,\u201d Mr. Pruitt told supporters at agency headquarters.<\/a> \u201cThe science that we use is going to be transparent.\u201d That so-called \u201ctransparency,\u201d however, comes at a huge cost: the elimination of decades of scientific studies from consideration when EPA regulations are written.<\/p>\n

In studies over the past few decades, researchers frequently collected data \u2014 often about personal, health, and medical status and practices \u2014 with subjects\u2019 permission, and signed confidentiality agreements with those subjects, agreeing to keep the information private. Such data were anonymized and reported to the EPA with the requirement that subjects\u2019 personal information not be made public. Trevor Nace of Forbes<\/em> magazine writes<\/a> of the proposed rule: \u201cIt literally throws out fundamental and hallmark environmental studies the EPA paid scientists to conduct and [which it used to] build the foundation of many of our air and water quality guidelines.\u201d It should be noted that such studies have been rigorously peer reviewed, and vetted scientists can already obtain access to such anonymized data from the EPA, so the conservative claim that EPA has used \u201csecret science\u201d is misleading.<\/p>\n

If enacted, critics say, the rule will cause researchers great difficulty in recruiting subjects who, understandably, would not necessarily want their data shared publicly. In addition, it would have particular impact on longitudinal (long-term) studies. Former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy commented,<\/a> \u201cThe best studies follow individuals over time, so that you can control all the factors except for the ones you\u2019re measuring. . . . But it means following people\u2019s personal history, their medical history. And nobody would want somebody to expose all of their private information.\u201d She notes that such a rule would have disqualified the federal government from using groundbreaking research, including, for instance, the studies that linked neurological damage to exposure to leaded gasoline, or the 1993 Harvard University \u201cSix Cities\u201d study<\/a> that established the association between fine-particle air pollution and premature death.<\/p>\n

Opponents of the rule say it would have enormous deleterious impacts on EPA\u2019s ability to protect humans and the environment from pesticides and other toxic chemicals, air pollution, and other threats. Public health and environmental groups, and scientists say that the rule would largely prevent the agency from using landmark, long-standing studies\u00a0on the harmful effects of air pollution and pesticide exposure because such research often involves proprietary information or confidential medical or personal histories.<\/p>\n

For years, conservatives have worked to discredit independent\u00a0research EPA has used to explain and justify its bases for regulation, such as banning some dangerous chemicals, or limiting air pollution from burning coal and other fossil fuels. Academic and public health research have been particular targets. A rule such as the one proposed by Administrator Pruitt has long been sought by industry and some conservative politicians, including Representative Lamar Smith of Texas. A FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) yielded emails showing, among other facts, that Rep. Lamar met with Administrator Pruitt on January 9, 2018 \u2014 after he failed to get his 2017 \u201cHonest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act\u201d\u00a0passed in Congress \u2014 to pressure Mr. Pruitt to implement the \u201cHonest\u201d bill\u2019s goals from inside the agency.<\/p>\n

UCS spokesperson Yogin Kothari said<\/a> the emails show that \u201cthe plan was crafted by political staff with little input from scientists. They also show that EPA’s political appointees are mostly concerned about industry, rather than environmental or health protections. . . . This idea to restrict the use of science at EPA was hatched solely and worked on almost exclusively by political appointees who are doing everything they can to ensure that independent science doesn’t get in the way of policy decisions at the agency. . . . It’s an effort to stack the deck in favor of industry that EPA is supposed to regulate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The day before the announcement of the rule, 985 scientists sent\u00a0a letter<\/a>,\u00a0organized by UCS,\u00a0to Administrator Pruitt urging him not to move ahead with the rule change. The letter said,<\/a> \u201cThere are ways to improve transparency in the decision-making process, but restricting the use of science would improve neither transparency nor the quality of EPA decision making. If fully implemented, this proposal would greatly weaken EPA\u2019s ability to comprehensively consider the scientific evidence across the full array of health effects studies. This would negatively impact EPA public protections.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposed rule is subject to a 30-day comment period, and science groups are rallying to block its finalization. Legal experts say that, if implemented, it could trigger judicial challenges, noting that<\/a> \u201cin unanimous decisions in 2002 and 2010, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the EPA is not legally obligated to\u00a0obtain and publicize the data underlying the research it considers in crafting regulations.\u201d Richard J. Lazarus, a professor of environmental law at Harvard University, said<\/a> Administrator Pruitt would be \u201cwalking into a judicial minefield\u201d if he told EPA to stop considering certain studies in its rule-making. He indicated that would be an arbitrary and capricious decision under the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs agency rule-making, and would \u201csubject any agency regulation issued based on such a defective record to ready judicial invalidation.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are any number of unknowns related to the fate of this proposed new rule, including its potential impacts on pesticide registration with EPA, as required under FIFRA (the Federal\u00a0Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act). As if the registration process were not already labyrinthine \u2014 and for much of the public, inscrutable \u2014 enough, this rule\u2019s potential influence is not yet clear. In applying only to \u201csignificant regulatory actions,\u201d it appears that the rule specifically may not apply to individual adjudications or permit proceedings, and therefore, not to pesticide registrations or re-registrations. Under this interpretation, EPA\u2019s \u201cmore transparent science\u201d would seem potentially to hamstring science-based efforts to protect public health, but greenlight industry in registering potentially harmful pesticides. In this scenario, the pesticide industry will have been given a \u201cpass\u201d that could allow it to continue, more or less, with business as usual.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the rule might backfire on Administrator Pruitt\u2019s and the Trump administration\u2019s goal of making life easier for industry. As Lisa M. Campbell and James V. Aidala set out in the Pesticide Law and Policy Blog,<\/em><\/a> \u201cFor pesticide registrants [aka pesticide manufacturers], the rule poses significant potential issues. For example, registrants [could end up] spending millions of dollars on studies necessary to register products that are proprietary and protected from release to those who might use them to register their own products without compensating the owners; issues with regard to EPA\u2019s reliance under the proposed rule on these registrant generated and FIFRA required studies will need to be considered carefully. As another example, EPA\u2019s review of epidemiology data underlying its conclusions regarding chlorpyrifos and other organophosphate pesticide requirements potentially may be subject to more stringent requirements than they previously were.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nancy Beck, deputy assistant administrator of EPA’s chemicals office, and formerly of the American Chemistry Council, has opined<\/a> on what the rule might mean for pesticide registration, for chemical manufacturers, and for regulation of chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). \u201cThis directive needs to be revised. Without change it will jeopardize our entire pesticide registration\/re-registration review process and likely all TSCA risk evaluations,\u201d Dr. Beck wrote. She also notes that actually making underlying research data publicly available represents a massive undertaking. Dr. Beck said,<\/a> \u201cMaking data available is very different than requiring a publication requirement. Such a requirement would be incredibly burdensome, not practical and you would need to create a whole new arm of the publishing industry to publish these types of studies that nobody is interested in. . . . [There is] no incentive for anyone, anywhere to publish them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richard Denison, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, notes<\/a> that \u201cwhat Nancy Beck is ironically pointing to is [that] the same set of issues would fall on the industry, because it is not only whether the information would be made public or not, it’s the cost and burden associated with doing so.\u201d The rule may also have a potentially chilling effect on the kinds of data industry would be willing to submit to EPA in seeking registration of pesticides or other chemicals.<\/p>\n

Making such data public would likely be very expensive. There is not yet an official estimate of the costs associated with EPA obtaining and disseminating the data underlying studies, but the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has projected that Rep. Smith\u2019s proposed bill, if enacted, would have cost the agency $250 million initially, and $1 million to $100 million annually. In 2015, the CBO estimated that the bill\u2019s requirements about data would have reduced the number of studies EPA considered by half. Geophysicist Marcia McNutt, president of the National Academy of Sciences, has voiced her concern<\/a> that the rule would prevent the EPA from being able to use the best available scientific evidence.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/em> notes<\/a> that this proposed rule \u201creflects a broader effort already underway to shift how the EPA conducts and uses science to guide its work.\u201d Andrew Rosenberg, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at UCS, adds,<\/a>\u00a0“With false claims about transparency, the political appointees at the EPA are drastically restricting the ability of the agency to rely on science.\u00a0They are ordering EPA employees to put on blinders and only see the science that they want them to see. They are sacrificing the health of Americans in favor of special interests, a disturbing pattern for this Administration. It’s no coincidence that the same people calling for this change have been funded by the petrochemical and tobacco industries for years. Pruitt has turned his back on the American people to stick his snout deep in the trough of corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

All unattributed positions and opinions in this piece are those of Beyond Pesticides.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sources: https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/energy-environment\/wp\/2018\/04\/24\/pruitt-to-unveil-controversial-transparency-rule-limiting-what-research-epa-can-use\/?utm_term=.9b4dabe4f157<\/a> and http:\/\/www.sciencemag.org\/news\/2018\/04\/trump-s-epa-wants-stamp-out-secret-science-internal-emails-show-it-harder-expected<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Beyond Pesticides, May 4, 2018)\u00a0Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt proposed a new rule, on April 24, that, if adopted, will restrict the use of certain kinds of science research in the agency\u2019s writing of regulations. Titled \u201cStrengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science,\u201d the rule will permit EPA to consider only research studies for which the underlying data are publicly available when considering new \u201csignificant\u201d regulations \u2014 typically, those estimated to impose costs of $100 million or more. Supporters of the rule say\u00a0that EPA has, in crafting regulations in the past, relied on \u201csecret science\u201d \u2014 studies for which the underlying data cannot necessarily be accessed by members of the public. At face value, this may sound reasonable. Administrator Pruitt and proponents call the proposed rule a plus for transparency that will boost public confidence in the science bases of EPA decision making. \u201cToday is a red-letter day,\u201d Mr. Pruitt told supporters at agency headquarters. \u201cThe science that we use is going to be transparent.\u201d That so-called \u201ctransparency,\u201d however, comes at a huge cost: the elimination of decades of scientific studies from consideration when EPA regulations are written. In studies over the past few decades, researchers frequently collected data \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[354,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environmental-protection-agency-epa","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMr. Pruitt\u2019s Proposed \u201cScience Transparency\u201d Rule: Greenlighting Industry? - Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2018\/05\/mr-pruitts-proposed-science-transparency-rule-greenlighting-industry\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mr. Pruitt\u2019s Proposed \u201cScience Transparency\u201d Rule: Greenlighting Industry? - Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(Beyond Pesticides, May 4, 2018)\u00a0Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt proposed a new rule, on April 24, that, if adopted, will restrict the use of certain kinds of science research in the agency\u2019s writing of regulations. 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Titled \u201cStrengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science,\u201d the rule will permit EPA to consider only research studies for which the underlying data are publicly available when considering new \u201csignificant\u201d regulations \u2014 typically, those estimated to impose costs of $100 million or more. Supporters of the rule say\u00a0that EPA has, in crafting regulations in the past, relied on \u201csecret science\u201d \u2014 studies for which the underlying data cannot necessarily be accessed by members of the public. At face value, this may sound reasonable. Administrator Pruitt and proponents call the proposed rule a plus for transparency that will boost public confidence in the science bases of EPA decision making. \u201cToday is a red-letter day,\u201d Mr. Pruitt told supporters at agency headquarters. \u201cThe science that we use is going to be transparent.\u201d That so-called \u201ctransparency,\u201d however, comes at a huge cost: the elimination of decades of scientific studies from consideration when EPA regulations are written. In studies over the past few decades, researchers frequently collected data \u2014 […]","og_url":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2018\/05\/mr-pruitts-proposed-science-transparency-rule-greenlighting-industry\/","og_site_name":"Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/beyondpesticides","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/beyondpesticides\/","article_published_time":"2018-05-04T05:00:38+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-05-04T13:44:09+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/images-1.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Beyond Pesticides","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@ByondPesticides","twitter_site":"@ByondPesticides","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Beyond Pesticides","Est. reading time":"9 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2018\/05\/mr-pruitts-proposed-science-transparency-rule-greenlighting-industry\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2018\/05\/mr-pruitts-proposed-science-transparency-rule-greenlighting-industry\/"},"author":{"name":"Beyond Pesticides","@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/#\/schema\/person\/1b5c0a0981b549cc5b628770073031f4"},"headline":"Mr. Pruitt\u2019s Proposed \u201cScience Transparency\u201d Rule: Greenlighting Industry?","datePublished":"2018-05-04T05:00:38+00:00","dateModified":"2018-05-04T13:44:09+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2018\/05\/mr-pruitts-proposed-science-transparency-rule-greenlighting-industry\/"},"wordCount":1809,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2018\/05\/mr-pruitts-proposed-science-transparency-rule-greenlighting-industry\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/images-1.jpg","articleSection":["Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2018\/05\/mr-pruitts-proposed-science-transparency-rule-greenlighting-industry\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2018\/05\/mr-pruitts-proposed-science-transparency-rule-greenlighting-industry\/","url":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2018\/05\/mr-pruitts-proposed-science-transparency-rule-greenlighting-industry\/","name":"Mr. Pruitt\u2019s Proposed \u201cScience Transparency\u201d Rule: Greenlighting Industry? 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By forging ties with governments, nonprofits, and people who rely on these natural resources, we reduce the need for unnecessary pesticide use and protect public health and the environment. Beyond Pesticides provides hands-on services to the public and supports local action by: identifying and interpreting hazards; and, designing safe pest management programs. With the information provided by Beyond Pesticides, people may not only be able to make informed choices and adopt practices that protect themselves and their families from unnecessary exposure to pesticides, but they will be able to effect changes on community-wide pest management decisions and policies that govern pesticide use, such as pesticide uses in parks, schools, for community insect control and along roadsides. 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