SAN DIEGO -- EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's stated goal of making air pollution studies more transparent represents a gift to industry and a serious threat to public health, environmental health researchers said here.
"This is an intentional effort to suppress essential data from EPA consideration. It really represents a gift to industry to avoid additional regulations," said George Thurston, DSc, of NYU School of Medicine in New York City, during a press conference at the American Thoracic Society (ATS) annual meeting.
Researchers discussed Trump era actions taken by EPA, including a proposal requiring the public release of all data from scientific studies evaluated by the agency that would represent a seminal change in how the EPA evaluates science to create public policy on air pollution standards.
The proposed transparency rule would greatly limit the EPA's ability to use the best available science to set air pollution control standards and address other regulatory matters the researchers said.
Thurston pointed out that Pruitt's proposal was very similar to legislation championed by climate change deniers in the House of Representatives for several years.
Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who heads the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, has unsuccessfully proposed several bills to force the EPA to rely exclusively on research that includes no data derived from anonymous sources.
Smith joined Pruitt in announcing the proposed rule last month, and much of the rule's language is from his failed bill, known as the Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act, or the HONEST Act.
The environmental scientists noted that many key cohort studies include data from personal medical records, which cannot be made public under the law.
They argued that many of the best scientific studies could not be considered under the proposed rule.
Thurston said the peer review process for scientific research as well as study replication by independent researchers and the nonprofit Health Effects Institute (HEI), which evaluates pollution science, already address the issue of inadequate or biased research.
"This proposal seeks to solve a problem that doesn't exist," he said. "The EPA already has the means to validate studies and address this purported problem."
Requiring that all data from scientific studies be made public would also allow industry and other special interests to "abuse and reanalyze" the data in an effort to debunk it, Thurston said.
"A lot of the ideas for this rule originated with the tobacco industry," he added. "Now the playbook is being applied to environmental research."
In addition to the proposed rule change, Pruitt has also barred pollution researchers receiving grants from the agency from serving on it's scientific advisory panels, arguing that the researchers have a clear conflict of interest.
But critics charge that the move actually represents an attempt by the EPA administrator to pack the panels with industry representatives.
Ed Avol, of the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles, is one of several researchers suing Pruitt over the ban. Avol served on an EPA advisory panel before the ban was announced.
"Industry representatives are now serving on the panels that academic researchers previously served on,"Avol said. "One might ask what potential conflicts of interest these people might have when the decisions they are being asked to make directly impact their companies bottom lines."
The ATS opposes the proposed scientific study policy and the policy removing researchers with EPA grants from advisory panels.
"EPA's proposed policy appears to fit into a larger trend, to put it kindly, to marginalize the input of science and scientists into EPA's decision making," said Stephen C. Crane, PhD, ATS executive director, adding "Let's be clear. This seemingly innocuous policy proposal may have a more insidious side that will alternately reduce the ability of science and scientists to help shape EPA policy."