New EPA Rule Looks to Exclude "Inconvenient" Scientific Evidence

[Brainonska511]

The EPA, under Andrew Wheeler, is reviving the proposed rule to limit "acceptable" scientific evidence. Basically, they want to reject any data that they don't have the super raw data for - for example, they want patient level data, which some studies may not be allowed to disclose because of the agreements they signed with the people monitored. They'll scream "transparency", but the real reason is to exclude important public health data when making new rules, so polluters can continue to dump their costs on the rest of society.

E.P.A. to Limit Science Used to Write Public Health Rules (Published 2019)

A new agency rule would restrict the science that can be used in drafting health regulations by requiring researchers to turn over confidential health data.

nyti.ms

A new draft of the Environmental Protection Agency proposal, titled Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science, would require that scientists disclose all of their raw data, including confidential medical records, before the agency could consider an academic study’s conclusions. E.P.A. officials called the plan a step toward transparency and said the disclosure of raw data would allow conclusions to be verified independently.
...
For instance, a groundbreaking 1993 Harvard University project that definitively linked polluted air to premature deaths, currently the foundation of the nation’s air-quality laws, could become inadmissible. When gathering data for their research, known as the Six Cities study, scientists signed confidentiality agreements to track the private medical and occupational histories of more than 22,000 people in six cities. They combined that personal data with home air-quality data to study the link between chronic exposure to air pollution and mortality.

But the fossil fuel industry and some Republican lawmakers have long criticized the analysis and a similar study by the American Cancer Society, saying the underlying data sets of both were never made public, preventing independent analysis of the conclusions.

The change is part of a broader administration effort to weaken the scientific underpinnings of policymaking. Senior administration officials have tried to water down the testimony of government scientists, publicly chastised scientists who have dissented from President Trump’s positions and blocked government researchers from traveling to conferences to present their work.

 

[zinfamous]

Will be thrown out/never pass the courts, like all of this meaningless grist that these goons are passing onto Trumpland as if they are actually doing something. This nonsense only exists to make these deplorables happy, because all they need is a whiff that a thing exists or has happened. None of them have ever given a dick about the reality in front of their faces.

 

[K1052]

Will be thrown out/never pass the courts, like all of this meaningless grist that these goons are passing onto Trumpland as if they are actually doing something. This nonsense only exists to make these deplorables happy, because all they need is a whiff that a thing exists or has happened. None of them have ever given a dick about the reality in front of their faces.

The comically corrupt and narrow industrial interests that now occupy the political positions at EPA are actually pretty amazingly bad at altering regulations in any durable way. The law requires the agency to show that the changes are not arbitrary or harmful and back that up with research and they manage to come up empty almost every time because some coal lobbyist yahoo just decided to change something without even a shred of backup.

Once this administration is out of power the next president should triple the EPA's budget and bring it down hard on everyone who thought they were getting a free lunch. Take a sledgehammer to the coal industry and put oil/gas on a very short leash.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Will be thrown out/never pass the courts, like all of this meaningless grist that these goons are passing onto Trumpland as if they are actually doing something. This nonsense only exists to make these deplorables happy, because all they need is a whiff that a thing exists or has happened. None of them have ever given a dick about the reality in front of their faces.

I bet it will because there is no requirement for Administration policy to be based on facts.

 

[fskimospy]

I bet it will because there is no requirement for Administration policy to be based on facts.

There is, actually! That’s part of the news that frequently goes unreported - that all these EPA regulatory rollbacks are struck down by the courts because they don’t meet the statutory requirement of being based on the best science, etc.

It’s literally the law that EPA policy must be based on facts.

 

[K1052]

There is, actually! That’s part of the news that frequently goes unreported - that all these EPA regulatory rollbacks are struck down by the courts because they don’t meet the statutory requirement of being based on the best science, etc.

It’s literally the law that EPA policy must be based on facts.

Right and EPA losses in court so far exceed 90% last time I looked. A string of legal failures that is entirely unprecedented for a federal agency...well until the Trump era.

 

[zinfamous]

The comically corrupt and narrow industrial interests that now occupy the political positions at EPA are actually pretty amazingly bad at altering regulations in any durable way. The law requires the agency to show that the changes are not arbitrary or harmful and back that up with research and they manage to come up empty almost every time because some coal lobbyist yahoo just decided to change something without even a shred of backup.

Once this administration is out of power the next president should triple the EPA's budget and bring it down hard on everyone who thought they were getting a free lunch. Take a sledgehammer to the coal industry and put oil/gas on a very short leash.

exactly. Few in the Trump sphere of influence seem to realize or even care that there is a very strict burden of proof when it comes to changing EPA regulations, and it always weighs heavily on the side of scientific evidence.

Absolutely none of this is based on science, it is never based on safety for citizens, and it is only ever implemented for the benefit of a handful of wealthy assholes that are desperately clinging to long-dead industries (and just for their benefit--never their employees).

Trumplandia doesn't care, though. They just assume great and wonderful things are happening, because Trump said so. No one cares about follow-up or evidence when it comes to the things they are willing to believe among the GOP.

 

[fskimospy]

exactly. Few in the Trump sphere of influence seem to realize or even care that there is a very strict burden of proof when it comes to changing EPA regulations, and it always weighs heavily on the side of scientific evidence.

Absolutely none of this is based on science, it is never based on safety for citizens, and it is only ever implemented for the benefit of a handful of wealthy assholes that are desperately clinging to long-dead industries (and just for their benefit--never their employees).

Trumplandia doesn't care, though. They just assume great and wonderful things are happening, because Trump said so. No one cares about follow-up or evidence when it comes to the things they are willing to believe among the GOP.

I'm not sure that Trump cares about these losses or is even aware of them. All he cares about is the headline.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

There is, actually! That’s part of the news that frequently goes unreported - that all these EPA regulatory rollbacks are struck down by the courts because they don’t meet the statutory requirement of being based on the best science, etc.

It’s literally the law that EPA policy must be based on facts.

That's good to know but EPA policy also makes facts almost impossible to be clearly stated and I cite changes to what "good science" is defined to be in climate.

 

[fskimospy]

That's good to know but EPA policy also makes facts almost impossible to be clearly stated and I cite changes to what "good science" is defined to be in climate.

That doesn't matter though, if EPA policy is preventing them from accessing the best science then whatever rules they make based on that lack of science will also be struck down.

EDIT: And to be clear this is one of the few areas where I can say the system has been relatively resilient to the corruption of the Trump administration. The laws surrounding EPA rulemaking are pretty robust and the courts have a lot of power to review them, which is why despite a concerted effort over the last 3 years Trump and his cronies have largely failed at significantly rolling back environmental regulations. They are too lazy and incompetent.

 

[hal2kilo]

Will be thrown out/never pass the courts, like all of this meaningless grist that these goons are passing onto Trumpland as if they are actually doing something. This nonsense only exists to make these deplorables happy, because all they need is a whiff that a thing exists or has happened. None of them have ever given a dick about the reality in front of their faces.

With all this litigation, you wonder what the F the executive branch has really accomplished. My hope is absolutely nothing, and things are just in a holding pattern. The courts on the other hand make me cry.

 

[zinfamous]

I'm not sure that Trump cares about these losses or is even aware of them. All he cares about is the headline.

Oh I know. This is the point. It's why "investigating corruption in Ukraine" isn't the point of the impeachment. He never asked for an investigation. He asked for Zelensky to publicly claim that an investigation was happening. That was the only demand. ...which is dramatically more damning and more solidifying for the argument that he was only seeking personal favors. If he wanted a real investigation, he would have asked for it.

Elect a reality gameshow host, expect a reality president. Nothing that he wants to present to you is ever true. It is only curated to project a completely false character of the man behind the screen.

 

[brycejones]

Right and EPA losses in court so far exceed 90% last time I looked. A string of legal failures that is entirely unprecedented for a federal agency...well until the Trump era.

I am not tired of this winning yet,

 

[IronWing]

This reminds me a push back in the 90s by state level conservative politicians to accept only "credible data" for use by state agencies. They had this idea that evidence of pollution must be flawed. The impetus was the rising level of nitrate contamination from feedlots, chicken farms, and hog farms. Wyoming implemented a "credible data" rule for groundwater quality data thinking that Wyoming would become miraculously free of groundwater pollution. What actually happened was that the only data that could meet the over the top data quality standard set by the rule were collected at superfund sites so Wyoming became profoundly contaminated.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Will be thrown out/never pass the courts, like all of this meaningless grist that these goons are passing onto Trumpland as if they are actually doing something. This nonsense only exists to make these deplorables happy, because all they need is a whiff that a thing exists or has happened. None of them have ever given a dick about the reality in front of their faces.

Pffft
You Scientist dudes are wrong all the time