Trump EPA Erects New Barriers To Crucial Science

Enlarge this image

A new EPA rule will make it more difficult for the regulators to use some scientific studies about the connection between pollution and health.

DKAR Images/Getty Images

hide caption

toggle caption

DKAR Images/Getty Images

Science
GOP Effort To Make Environmental Science ‘Transparent’ Worries Scientists

Epidemiological studies that examine the relationship between pollution and health sometimes rely on massive amounts of medical data that is anonymized or kept confidential in order to protect the privacy of study participants. However, rigorous scientific studies are reviewed by multiple experts in the field before publication, and that peer-review process includes an examination of how the underlying data was analyzed.

Given the rigor of the modern scientific review process, the EPA’s own internal board of scientific advisors raised questions about the new rule. When the board reviewed an earlier draft of the new rule last year, they noted that there is already a trend among scientists toward making data publicly available when it’s possible to do so without compromising confidentiality. The EPA advisors said that the new rule could «decrease efficiency and reduce scientific integrity.

This is the latest in a string of controversial decisions the EPA has made in the final stretch of President Trump’s administration. In December, the agency decided not to strengthen air quality standards for ozone and soot, and enacted a new rule that requires future clean air regulations to weigh economic costs of curbing pollution while ignoring benefits, such as the deaths that could be avoided.

Science
Air Quality Disparities Persist Despite Overall Gains

American Lung Association chief executive Harold Wimmer calls the new science rule «a dangerous step in the wrong direction – one that threatens the integrity and use of the best science, and consequently threatens our health and lives.

Last year, the association co-signed a letter opposing the new rule with more than 50 medical, environmental and scientific groups including the American Medical Association, the American Heart Association and the American Public Health Association.

«It has no merits from the standpoint of science or transparency, and it will make it vastly harder for the agency to do its job of protecting public health and the environment, Andrew Rosenberg of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a national science advocacy group, wrote in an email after the final rule was announced. «The damage will fall hardest on Black, Latinx and Indigenous communities who already bear disproportionate harms from environmental hazards in the air, water and soil.

The Biden administration could remove or rewrite the rule, but it would take months, if not years. Because the rule gives the EPA administrator the power to override the limits on which scientific studies EPA regulators can use, the incoming administration could essentially sidestep the rule while it works to undo it.