Drain The EPA Swamp—Part 2- Secret Science

The Trump administration has formed a team charged with making recommendations for changes to the EPA. This action is needed because gone are the days when the EPA followed the legislation written by Congress.  Good things were accomplished by the EPA.  But now the EPA has over stepped it authority. The EPA task is to administer the law, not make it. For example, it has developed criteria to justify their own efforts, often invites “friendly lawsuits to expand their activities, and uses “secret science” to justify their regulations:

The following are some of the areas that the team need to address, in my opinion:

• Social Cost of Carbon
• Secret Science
• Peer Reviewed Studies
• Friendly Law Suits
• The Endangerment Finding
• Research Grants
• Last Minute Regulations

I will keep this intro in all the Drain The EPA Swamp postings.

The Clean Power regulations by the EPA essentially shuts down coal based generated electrical power.  The regulations have been stayed by the courts.  The question the courts are asking is regarding the damage to the coal industry and the people dependent on that industry.   The “science” used by the EPA to justify these regulations are primarily predicated on the effect of mercury and 2.5 micro particles emitted by these plants. The courts however have no intentions of tackling the science.  This is unfortunate because both the mercury and 2.5 micron particles are bad science.

The 2.5-micron study that the EPA says justifies their regulation is based upon Secret Science—and that is just what it is.  The EPA refuses to release the data that is said to show how dangerous these particles are.  Studies, including studies by the EPA over many years have never shown that these tiny particles are harmful.  But the EPA commissioned a new study, that, guess what, said the particles are very dangerous.  Scientist that have done the previous studies wanted to see the data that allowed the new study to come to this conclusion.  It’s secret!!!!!  Can’t let you examine it.

The House of Representatives introduced a bill banning the use of Secret Science. But Obama planned to veto it, if it passed the Senate.  Let’s hope that after Obama is replaced, this bill can be made into law.  The bill will probably need 60 votes in the Senate, if the Democrats plan to block it.  However, I think that blocking a secret science ban will not be looked at favorably by the Citizens, no matter how much the main-stream media tries to provide “favorable spin.

This whole episode of Clean Power Plan secret science can be examined by reading my postings in July 2015.  They can be access by clicking here, here and here.   Please read these three postings.  They are pretty good.

The arrogant and out of control operation the EPA has become is illustrated by the EPA Head, Gina McCarthy.  The Court said stop, don’t any more on the Clean Power Plan until we sort out the issues.  McCarthy said “I’m not pausing.  I’m not slowing down.”  Obama has done nothing to see that the EPA honor the Court Order.

cbdakota