(Washington, DC)— Yesterday, Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) sent a letter to President-Elect Biden urging his Administration to prioritize rolling back the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) “Strengthening Transparency in Pivotal Science Underlying Significant Regulatory Actions and Influential Scientific Information” rule, finalized this Wednesday.
The rule would prohibit the Agency from properly considering scientific studies in its regulatory process that do not publicly available their underlying data for independent validation. In the finalization of the rule, EPA may have violated the law by disregarding the Administrative Procedure Act’s mandated 30-day waiting period and implemented the rule upon publication in the Federal Register.
“The EPA cannot be fully restored to its necessary role as a champion of the nation’s environment unless the Trump Administration’s worst initiatives to sabotage the Agency are swept away,” said Chairwoman Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) in the letter. “I write to highlight one of the most pernicious of these efforts: the so-called “Strengthening Transparency in Pivotal Science Underlying Significant Regulatory Actions and Influential Scientific Information” rule, which the Agency recently finalized on January 6. This regulation would prohibit EPA from properly considering scientific studies in its regulatory process unless those studies have made their underlying data publicly available. As a result, it will undermine your environmental agenda for as long as it is allowed to remain in place. The rule is designed to exclude critical science from EPA policymaking and to tie the Agency’s hands as it seeks to address our most pressing environmental challenges. I urge you to move swiftly on Day One against this rule, and to use all legal and administrative means at your disposal to do so.”
Source: Press Release Date: January 8, 2020 Rebekah Eskandani Catherine Anderson