3 Reasons the EPA is Already Great

By Chelsea Jackson on February 9, 2017

On Tuesday, February 7th, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology conducted a meeting entitled Making EPA Great Again. The purpose of the meeting was just as it sounds—to make the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) great again, by reviewing the agency’s regulatory decision making, its protection of the environment and public health, as well as its overall credibility.

During this meeting, the committee discussed a legislation that would severely impede the types of scientific studies the EPA would be allowed to conduct and thereby allowed to communicate to the taxpayers. While a healthy dose of checks and balances are necessary in the United States government, especially in one of the country’s governmental science agencies, the legislation would prohibit studies that use one-time events.

Although it is important in science to replicate an event or an experiment to gather more data and eventually come to a conclusion, there are some scientific events that cannot be ethically or physically reconstruction, such as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. For obvious reasons, an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico cannot purposely be duplicated. The particular spill could be compared to similar oil spills in other waterways; however, it would still be considered an isolated event. Regardless, the sole fact that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was a solitary incident should not revoke credibility from any scientific findings from said event. While the spilled oil in the Gulf did not completely inspire the EPA’s oil research, singular events such as oil spills in varies locations in the U.S. have allowed the agency to cultivate revolutionary technology and techniques to both prevent and respond to future spills.

Naturally, the EPA did not use a slippery slope or any other logical fallacy to use data from the accident in the Gulf to craft these methods. The EPA used years of research and data from multiple singular events, which is why not all scientific research should be discredited based on if it can be repeated. Although the Make EPA Great Again meeting will not only discuss whether or not research on one-time events should be released to the public, further censorship of the agency’s research could prevent the United States taxpayers the right to learn about critical scientific cases that their tax dollars fund.

While appropriate censorship for nonsensical scientific studies should be praised, the EPA already has an intensive scientific integrity policy, which prevents both censorship of valuable information to the taxpayers and the accuracy of the studies. Since 2012, the EPA has followed the scientific integrity policy, “The Agency’s ability to pursue its mission to protect human health and the environment depends upon the integrity of the science on which it relies…. When dealing with science, it is the responsibility of every EPA employee to conduct, utilized, and communicate science with honesty, integrity, and transparency, both within and outside the Agency”. Because the current policy promises to uphold the legitimacy of the agency’s studies, there are currently several internal reviewed that occur before any study can be communicated to the taxpayers.

While the committee could improve the EPA’s current policy, a case-by-case review by politicians and external scientists would contradict the current policy. The current scientific integrity policy allows the distribution of timely communication of accurate and unbiased scientific information to taxpayer, which is exactly why the EPA is great already; however, there are a few other reasons that the EPA is currently great.

1. Protecting The Environment

NBC via tumblr.com

The EPA takes the quality of the air, water, land, and public health seriously. In 1972, the Clean Water Act allowed the EPA to create and regulate national guidelines to protect the United States’ waterways. The Clean Water Act not only upholds the safety of rivers, oceans and lakes, it also secures the public health of taxpayers, because contaminants in public waterways can meander into municipal bodies of water. In addition to the Clean Water Act, the EPA also enacted the Clean Air Act in 1970, which helped to lower the number of citizens dying from heart disease associated with lead poisoning. Most recently, the agency also published the Clean Power Plan in 2015, which will reduce the carbon pollutants from power plants.

Unfortunately, the House also wants to annul the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Methane and Waste Reduction Rule. The BLM Methane Rule currently states that any natural gas extracted from federal land is not wasted at the cost the taxpayer. Methane has more harmful repercussions on climate change than carbon dioxide, which would make it hazardous to the health of national parks and the public health of the parks’ visitors.

The BLM Methane Rule was initially established to preserve native flora and fauna, as well as taxpayers. The BLM Methane Rule helps to secure the health of wildlife and humans requiring the oil and gas industries to use methane mitigation technology. Along with other techniques, the mitigation technology reduces venting and leaks at drilling sites on public and tribal lands. Overturning this rule could have catastrophic ramifications on communities and the nature in these areas, as there would be less regulations on methane extraction methods.

2. Time Sensitivity

NBC via makeagif.com

Under the EPA’s current scientific integrity policy it is prohibited for, “all EPA employees, including scientists, managers and other Agency leadership from suppressing, altering, or otherwise impeding the timely release of scientific findings or conclusions.” While it seems natural that the new policy would likely negate the current scientific integrity policy, requiring case-by-case review would only delay critical information that needs to be distributed to the taxpayers.

Regrettably on Monday Jan 23rd, there was a temporary communication ban placed on the EPA, as well as the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The agency was prohibited from using press releases, social media posts, articles, and carrier pigeons to broadcast scientific information to the taxpayers.

3. Unbiased Information

NBC via tumblr.com

The current scientific integrity policy precludes, “all EPA employees, including scientists, managers and other Agency leadership from suppressing, altering, or otherwise impeding the timely release of scientific findings or conclusions”. Under the same policy, the agency implements a series of internal reviews to ensure a case’s authenticity and relevance to the country. Conversely, requiring case-by-case review from politicians would conceive bias, especially if a particular reviewer who did not believe in climate change was analyzing research on climate change or gas emissions. If this particular review were to take place, it could prevent vital research from being released to the taxpayers.

Because the current scientific integrity policy prevents the suppression or alteration of scientific research, the new policy could cause more problems than solutions for the EPA. A case-by-case review of the EPA’s scientific findings, coupled with the Trump administration’s EPA administrator nominee, Scott Pruitt, could impede the progression of the agency’s research. Though the Senate has yet to vote on Pruitt, he has previously sued the EPA fourteen times and is against the agency’s supposed activist agenda. Pruitt’s biased disposition against the EPA could create more issues with the agency’s goal to release the transparent and unbiased scientific conclusions that makes the agency so great.

Although the EPA is already great, it’s not to say the agency isn’t perfect. After all, every organization needs some regular maintenance in its policies. However, implementing policy changes that completely contradict a successful policy is not the path to improvement. Hopefully the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology was able to discuss some other strategies to make the EPA better than great.

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