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BIG news that deserves more attention: Yesterday, a district court torpedoed the outgoing Trump administration's last-minute attempt to prevent EPA from using the best science to protect public health and the environment. 1/n https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/trump-epas-fast-tracked-secret-science-rule-scrapped-by-court
EPA leaders should move swiftly to suspend and rescind the policy, which would compromise EPA's mission by excluding thousands of studies from consideration as EPA sets pollution standards. 2/n
https://www.lung.org/media/press-releases/final-censoring-science-rule
https://www.lung.org/media/press-releases/final-censoring-science-rule
The Trump EPA spent three years and thousands of staff hours on a Trojan Horse proposal stemming from the wishes of tobacco lobbyists: sideline as much public health research as possible to stop science-based public protections. 3/n https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/12/13/how-trumps-war-science-is-borrowing-tobacco-industry-playbook/
This “Censored Science” proposal failed in Congress for many years before finding a sympathetic ear from EPA Administrators Scott Pruitt and Andrew Wheeler. See a partial timeline here: 4/n https://blog.ucsusa.org/michael-halpern/timeline-23-years-of-attempts-to-restrict-public-health-science-at-epa
The EPA policy was written by political appointees, not scientists. Scientists within the agency had little input. The agency’s top scientists had not even read the draft policy before it was published. 5/n https://www.washingtonpost.com/energy-environment/2018/10/03/epa-excluded-its-own-top-science-officials-when-it-rewrote-rules-using-scientific-studies/
Pruitt intended to quickly finalize the policy. But In 2018, hundreds of universities, scientific associations, experts, and NGOs filed detailed comments calling the proposal fatally flawed and urging its withdrawal. So many highly critical comments! 6/n https://blog.ucsusa.org/michael-halpern/a-list-of-scientific-organizations-that-have-supported-and-opposed-limiting-what-research-epa-can-use-to-make-decisions
The deluge of comments, and the requirement that EPA address them, delayed the rule significantly. But despite overwhelming opposition from mainstream scientists, the New York Times broke the story that the EPA wanted to *expand* the proposal. 7/n https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/11/climate/epa-science-trump.html
A subsequent congressional hearing on the EPA proposal was a disaster for the agency. 8/n https://blog.ucsusa.org/michael-halpern/notable-moments-from-the-hearing-on-epas-proposal-to-sideline-science
The EPA Science Advisory Board hated the agency’s science “transparency” proposal, calling it a “license to politicize” science in a draft analysis. 9/n https://blog.ucsusa.org/genna-reed/epa-advisory-boards-restricted-science-advice-is-too-little-too-late-and-comes-during-a-national-crisis
Still, EPA was hell-bent on finishing the proposal before the end of President Trump’s term. So they tried to force it through, with limited public comment and no public hearing, during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. 10/n
. @UCSUSA decided to organize a virtual public hearing on EPA’s behalf, drawing dozens of comments from everyone from @RepPaulTonko to former EPA administrator Bill Reilly. 11/n https://blog.ucsusa.org/michael-halpern/epa-refused-to-hold-hearing-so-we-held-it-for-them
Before he retired, Director of the EPA Office of the Science Advisor, Tom Sinks, submitted a scathing “differing scientific opinion” objecting to the rule that @LFFriedman reported on in November. 12/n https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/climate/epa-trump-biden.html
Sinks followed up with an op-ed in the Hill in November 2020: 13/n https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/527872-epas-scientific-integrity-in-question-over-science-rule
EPA finalized the rule on January 6, and claimed emergency powers to make it go into effect immediately. Normally, rules are subject to a 30-day waiting period before going into effect, and can be suspended at any time. 14/n https://www.npr.org/2021/01/05/953579414/trump-epa-erects-new-barriers-to-crucial-science
. @ENVDefenseFund, @MTEIC, and Citizens for Clean Energy asked the U.S. District Court in Montana to block the rule from going into effect. They won. 15/n https://www.edf.org/media/groups-file-lawsuit-opposing-trump-administrations-censored-science-rule#
The court said the administration failed to justify putting the rule through at the last minute. And that “The Final Rule determines outcomes rather than process.” Read the decision: 16/n
http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/files/2021/01/36-Order-granting-MSJ.pdf
http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/files/2021/01/36-Order-granting-MSJ.pdf
This monumental win would not have been possible without strong and sustained opposition from scientists and their allies. Thousands of scientists came out in opposition to the plan. Scores of scientific associations and NGOs advocated against it.
17/n
17/n
Leadership from @EnvDefenseFund, @billingspg, @gretchentg, @AAAS_GR, @ATScommunity, @RepPauTonko, @vilimaye, @EnvProtectioNet, @MichaelJFoxOrg, @CPRblog, @seanmhelle, @NPCA, @SciNetUCS, @HarvardEnvClin, @gennareed, Hayden Hashimoto @cleanaircatf, & many more led to this win 18/n
I’m hopeful that soon, EPA will again put science front and center in its decision-making. One important step is to immediately suspend and then take the necessary steps to rescind the restricted science rule once and for all. <End>
