The Bipartisan Policy Center is contradicting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's assertion that a controversial science transparency proposal is consistent with the group's recommendations.
On April 24, the EPA proposed the Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science rule aimed at ensuring that the science used to develop regulations, including any data or models used within a scientific study, is publicly available in a way that allows for independent verification.
The rule has been highly criticized by scientists, Democratic lawmakers, environmental groups and others who say the EPA is seeking to exclude studies that rely on public health data. The EPA's Science Advisory Board concurred with critics that the science transparency rule "would limit the use of science based on human subject data" and was conducted without consultation from the scientific community, including the SAB's scientists.
Conversely, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said the new rule would bring an end to the "era of secret science" by requiring the publication of the data and methodologies underlying the scientific studies the agency relies on in its rulemaking processes. The EPA said the rule is also consistent with the views of a variety of experts, including the Bipartisan Policy Center and scientific journals such as Nature and Science.
Both journals have rebutted that claim and criticized the EPA transparency rule. The Bipartisan Policy Center has not responded to requests for comment on the proposal. The group's president, Jason Grumet, broke that silence in a May 22 letter to the EPA explaining that the agency mischaracterized recommendations from a 2009 paper titled "Improving the Use of Science in Regulatory Policy. BPC Science for Policy Project Final Report."
"We want to be clear that the proposed rule is not consistent with the BPC report in substance or intent," Grumet said. "While the Science for Policy Project panel encouraged greater transparency and access to data, the report never suggested excluding studies from consideration in developing regulation if data from those studies were not publicly available."
Rather, Grumet said, the panel's recommendation for assembling the best available science suggests that agencies and their scientific advisory boards "should cast a wide net" to review studies that are relevant to regulatory policy and "should make their methods for filtering and evaluating those studies more transparent."
Grumet said the Science for Policy Project's 13 members included "liberals and conservatives; Republicans and Democrats; scientists and policy experts; and leaders with experience in government, industry, academia, and non-governmental organizations." The final recommendations reflected the consensus of the panelists, he said.
