Administrator Pruitt proposed ending the use of secret science on April 24th. The EPA often backs policy decisions with scientific evidence, but some of its most costly rules cite research with undisclosed data. Americans subjected to EPA regulations in the past sometimes couldn’t review the agency’s scientific justifications. Pruitt hopes to end this practice.
Conservative activists rightly decried decisions stilted by hidden data, coining the “secret science” nickname. Research that can’t be critiqued and reviewed by the American public should not dictate decisions over American lives. Yet, the EPA used secret science on massive rulemakings like the Clean Power Plan. Open review of data, research, and science should be the norm of for administrative agencies.
Supporters of secret science say banishing it will reduce availability of quality research for EPA rules, but this is nonsense. Their typical claim is that studies involving public health often involve private information from medical patients that cannot be publicly revealed without infringing patient privacy.
But during the announcement of new rules on secret science, Chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Lamar Smith (R-Texas) noted that other government agencies use redaction to protect privacy. Redaction can guarantee public viewing of data without revealing private information. Before third parties submit data to the EPA to inform policy-making decisions, they can scrub protected personal information from records used by the agency.
Most importantly, publicly available data makes for better...Read More HERE
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