EPA Administrator Wheeler Unveils Final Science Transparency Rule During CEI Forum

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler unveiled the agency’s final rule on strengthening transparency in pivotal science this morning during a policy forum hosted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) and broadcast live on C-SPAN 2. According to the EPA, the final rule calls on the agency to give greater consideration to studies where the underlying data is available for review by the public but also gives the Administrator authority to grant case-by-case exceptions with an justification for why the exemption is necessary.

CEI President and CEO Kent Lassman said:

“It is an unusual but not uncomfortable position for me to praise a new rule from the Environmental Protection Agency. Today the EPA took a step toward greater accountability. More transparency in science and for the regulatory process serves all three branches of government with better, clear information. More importantly, transparency has the potential to increase public confidence in the institutions of a free society. Crucial to the emergence of new, useful information is a scientific process that demands review, replication, and validation of both what we know and how we came to know it. Administrator Wheeler and the EPA have made incremental progress to reintroduce integrity to a hyper-politicized area of regulation crucial to the health and safety of all Americans and the protection of environmental values. More can be achieved with better laws from Congress.”

Director of CEI’s Center for Energy and Environment Myron Ebell said:

“Administrator Wheeler and his team are to be congratulated for seeing the scientific transparency rule through to completion in face of ferocious and ill-informed opposition by special interests. The final rule makes significant incremental improvements in the way scientific studies are used in the regulatory process. There is immense public support for more transparency in government, and there has been growing recognition in the scientific community that the use of secret science by EPA and other regulatory agencies not only leads to bad regulation; it also harms scientific research.”

Watch the entire conversation with Administrator Wheeler: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBzl4Llvx2Q

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