Top Advisors Pan Pruitt's Science Transparency Rule, Seek SAB Review

摘要

Top EPA science advisors, including Administrator Scott Pruitt's hand-picked chair of the agency's Science Advisory Board (SAB), are strongly criticizing the administrator's controversial plan to require only publicly available research to justify its regulations, charging it will undermine rules' integrity and was developed without adequate review. "The proposed rule does not include any assessment of the impact of data restrictions on existing or future regulatory programs. Without access to the restricted data, regulatory programs could become more or less stringent than they otherwise would be, with consequences for both regulatory costs and benefits," an SAB work group said in a May 12 memo recommending the fit 11 SAB review the measure. The memo is available on lnsideEPA.com. (Doc. ID: 211852) The work group even warns that the proposed rule "could have the effect of removing legal, ethical, and peer-reviewed studies of health effects as sources to support the agency's regulatory efforts," and suggests several steps to ease the rule's limits to allow for the use of confidential data. And echoing concerns from EPA staff, environmentalists, states and Democratic lawmakers, the memo warns that the measure was developed without adequate review from the public, the scientific community and others and calls for the full SAB to review the measure.