SALON
Wednesday, Nov 19, 2014 05:15 PM EST
The "reform" measure makes room for
industry-funded experts on the EPA's advisory board
Lindsay Abrams
Congressional climate wars were dominated Tuesday by the U.S. Senate, which spent the day debating, and ultimately
failing to pass,
a bill approving the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. While
all that was happening, and largely unnoticed, the House was busy doing
what it does best: attacking science.
H.R. 1422, which
passed 229-191,
would shake up the EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board, placing
restrictions on those pesky scientists and creating room for experts
with overt financial ties to the industries affected by EPA regulations.
The bill is being framed as
a play for transparency: Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas,
argued
that the board’s current structure is problematic because it “excludes
industry experts, but not officials for environmental advocacy groups.”
The inclusion of industry experts, he said, would right this injustice.
But the White House, which threatened to veto the bill,
said it would “negatively affect the appointment of experts and would weaken the scientific independence and integrity of the SAB.”
In
what might be the most ridiculous aspect of the whole thing, the bill
forbids scientific experts from participating in “advisory activities”
that either directly or indirectly involve their own work. In case that
wasn’t clear: experts would be forbidden from
sharing their expertise in their own research — the
bizarre assumption, apparently, being that having conducted
peer-reviewed studies on a topic would constitute a conflict of
interest. “In other words,” wrote Union of Concerned Scientists director
Andrew A. Rosenberg
in an editorial for RollCall,
“academic scientists who know the most about a subject can’t weigh in,
but experts paid by corporations who want to block regulations can.”
Speaking on the House floor Tuesday, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass.,
summed up what was going on: “I
get it, you don’t like science,” he told bill sponsor Rep. Chris
Stewart, R-Utah. “And you don’t like science that interferes with the
interests of your corporate clients. But we need science to protect
public health and the environment.”
The House, alas, is staying
the course, voting this week on two other bills aimed at impeding the
EPA, including one that prevents the agency from relying on what it
calls “
secret science” in crafting its regulations — but which in reality,
opponents argue,
would effectively block the EPA from adopting any new rules to protect
public health. The trio, wrote Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, in
an
editorial for the Hill, represents
“the culmination of one of the most anti-science and anti-health
campaigns I’ve witnessed in my 22 years as a member of Congress.”
The White House has
threatened to veto all three.
Lindsay Abrams is a staff writer at Salon, reporting on
all things sustainable. Follow her on Twitter @readingirl, email
labrams@salon.com.
More Lindsay Abrams.
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