A Senate committee has advanced legislation that would change how the Environmental Protection Agency uses science to craft regulations intended to protect the environment and public health, the Hill reported Tuesday. On party line votes, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee voted 11-9 to approve the “Secret Science Reform Act,” a bill to prohibit the EPA from using science that includes private data, or data that can’t be easily reproduced…. The purpose of the Secret Science bill, according to its House sponsor Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), is to stop “hidden and flawed” science from being the basis of EPA regulations. However, many scientific organizations have disagreed with this characterization…. “The legislation may sound reasonable, but it’s actually a cynical attack on the EPA’s ability to do its job,” said Andrew Rosenberg, the director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, in a statement. “This bill would make it impossible for the EPA to use many health studies, since they often contain private patient information that can’t and shouldn’t be revealed.”
If you’re not into details and you normally react rather than taking the time to investigate or ask questions, the “Secret Science Reform Act” probably makes perfect sense to you. Who wants scientists skulking around in secret, using their brains to make rules and policies good, God-fearing ‘Merican patriots can’t begin to understand? Why can’t scientists do their work in the light instead of acting as if they have something to hide? Why can’t we just defer to the Bible, which contains all the knowledge Mankind would ever need…for anything?
Except that science by its very nature require openness and transparency to be successful and useful. Using private data is a cost-effective and scientifically sound way for the EPA to formulate regulations…which Republicans hate, because regulations make it tougher for their wealthy benefactors to make money hand over fist. At the front of that line is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who’s said that his top priority is “to try to do whatever I can to get the EPA reined in.” After all, what are a few cases of cancer when the livelihood of a mogul is in the mix?
If you can’t control the science, you might as well create an environment (no pun intended) that essentially hamstrings the EPA. When your largest donors are the ones who “suffer” the most from an active, engaged EPA regulatory environment, it stands to reason that you’re going to want to stand up for those who grease your palms. Not that this means Republicans are corrupt or anything. They just hate science…and anything else that complicates life for those who line their campaign coffers. The EPA is just another Liberal anti-business stronghold determined to destroy everything that makes America great.
Besides, as any good, God-fearing, White Conservative Christian Patriot will tell you, science is for those who don’t have Jesus.
