Republicans Want to Make the EPA Great Again by Gutting Health Regulations

[enough]

https://theintercept.com/2017/02/05/republicans-want-to-make-the-epa-great-again-by-gutting-health-regulations/

By Sharon Lerner. 2/5/17

MUCH OF THE COUNTRY has been watching in horror as Donald Trump has made good on his promises to eviscerate the Environmental Protection Agency — delaying 30 regulations, severely limiting the information staffers can release, and installing Scott Pruitt as the agency’s administrator to destroy the agency from within. But even those keeping their eyes on the EPA may have missed a quieter attack on environmental protections now being launched in Congress.

On Tuesday, the House Committee on Science Science, Space, and Technology is expected to hold a hearing on a bill to undermine health regulations that is based on a strategy cooked up by tobacco industry strategists more than two decades ago. At what Republicans on the committee have dubbed the “Making EPA Great Again” hearing, lawmakers are likely to discuss “The Secret Science Reform Act,” a bill that would limit the EPA to using only data that can be replicated or made available for “independent analysis.”

The proposal may sound reasonable enough at first. But because health research often contains confidential personal information that is illegal to share, the bill would prevent the EPA from using many of the best scientific studies. It would also prohibit using studies of one-time events, such as the Gulf oil spill or the effect of a partial ban of chlorpyrifos on children, which fueled the EPA’s decision to eliminate all agricultural uses of the pesticide, because these events — and thus the studies of them — can’t be repeated. Although it is nominally about transparency, the bill leaves intact protections that allow industry to keep much of its own inner workings and skewed research secret from the public, while delegitimizing studies done by researchers with no vested interest in their outcome.

The top-billed witness scheduled to provide testimony at the House hearing on Tuesday is a lawyer named Jeffrey Holmstead, who has has worked to block the EPA’s efforts to limit mercury pollution while representing coal companies including Duke Energy, Progress Energy, and Southern Company. Meanwhile, Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican chair of the House Science Committee who has been zealously promoting the secret science bill, is also in the pocket of the energy companies. Though he’s also received funding from Koch Industries and iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel Communications), Smith’s biggest contributors are oil and gas companies, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Also testifying on Tuesday will be Kimberly Smith of the American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry trade group.

MUCH MORE AT LINK

[safeinOhio]

1. We have access to foreign journals.

Expect more scientist to move abroad too.

[Cirque du So-What]

2. As if the health implications aren't bad enough

I can see this evisceration of regulations wreaking havoc with US businesses globally, where regulations such as RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) will prohibit many goods for export. Not exactly conducive to MAGA, capitalistas!

[El Mimbreno]

3. Ministry of Truth ...

Ministry of Love, Ministry of Environment, etc.