EPA’s Pruitt unveils ‘transparency’ rule
WASHINGTON — Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt proposed a rule Tuesday that would establish new standards for what science could be used in writing agency regulations, according to individuals briefed on the plan. The sweeping change, long sought by conservatives, could have significant implications for decisions on everything from the toxicity of household products to the level of soot that power plants can emit.
The rule would only allow EPA to consider studies for which the underlying data are made available publicly. Advocates describe this approach as an advance for transparency, but critics say it would effectively block the agency from relying on long-standing, landmark studies linking air pollution and pesticide exposure to harmful health effects.
“Today is a red-letter day. It’s a banner day,” Pruitt told a group of supporters at agency headquarters. “The science that we use is going to be transparent. It’s going to be reproducible.”
The move reflects a broader effort already underway to change how the agency conducts and uses science to guide its work. Pruitt has already changed the standards for who can serve on EPA’s advisory committees, barring scientists who received EPA grants for their research while still allowing those funded by industry.
The rule will be subject to a 30-day comment period, EPA officials said. Pruitt, who had described the change during interviews with select media over the past month, said it will “enhance confidence in our decision-making” and prove “durable” because it will be issued as a regulation.
“This is not a policy,” he said. “This is not a memo.”
Many scientists argue that applying a standard to public health and environmental studies that is not currently required by peer-reviewed journals would limit the information the EPA could take into account.
Some researchers collect personal data from subjects but pledge to keep it confidential — as was the case in a major 1993 study by Harvard University that established the link between fine-particle air pollution and premature deaths, as well as more recent research that tapped a Medicare database available to any scientific group guaranteeing confidentiality of the personal information. That practice would not be allowed under the new rule.
In an interview Tuesday, former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said that requiring the kind of disclosure Pruitt envisions would have disqualified the federal government from tapping groundbreaking research, such as studies linking exposure to lead gasoline to neurological damage. Scientists will have trouble recruiting study participants if the rule is enacted, she predicted, even if they pledge to redact private information before handing it over to the government.
“The best studies follow individuals over time, so that you can control all the factors except for the ones you’re measuring,” said McCarthy, who now directs the Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment at Harvard’s public health school. “But it means following people’s personal history, their medical history. And nobody would want somebody to expose all of their private information.”
House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, sought to establish a requirement similar to the one Pruitt has proposed, but his legislation, titled the Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act, failed to pass both chambers.