HONEST Act

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I thank the gentleman for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the rule and the underlying legislation. First, when the gentleman from Georgia said there were no amendments brought forward on this in the Rules Committee, that is partial truth but not the entire truth.

The entire truth is, when we have a process whereby Members believe that there might be an amendment process, there is something called a call for amendments which is issued. Often our chair, Mr. Sessions, and my friend from Georgia has heard Mr. Sessions come down to the floor and say: We are calling for amendments on this bill. Submit them. The Rules Committee will consider them and allow some of them to advance to the floor. At least you know you have a fair shot.

In this particular case, there was no call for amendments issued, which means, yes, Members could have spun their wheels, and sometimes you feel like a hamster doing that, just running around and not moving anywhere in one of those circles. And if we thought there was any realistic hope that amendments could be included, I, myself, would have been happy to submit one, as would many of my colleagues.

Chairman Smith actually requested a closed rule on this. So, again, the chairman of the committee and the Rules Committee gave every indication that we are not allowing any amendments to this bill; and that is what discourages Members from going through the work of submitting an amendment if they have a good idea what the outcome is already going to be.

So this is a closed rule. This is an antiscience bill. It is another example of how we go around the ability of Members to improve bills and, instead, work in a partisan, smoky, backroom manner where this bill emerges fully formed. The chair of the committee of jurisdiction himself didn't want any amendments or any changes to this rule, and the Rules Committee never called for those amendments.

Now, if the goal of this bill is somehow to increase government transparency, why don't we start with the lawmaking process and have an open rule that allows Democrats and Republicans to improve a bill and offer their best ideas forward? And if they are good ideas, they will be incorporated into the bill. If they are bad ideas and can't command a majority of this body, they will be defeated.

But, unfortunately, these partisan tactics that were seen trying to ram through legislation last week that failed when the Speaker and the President refused to work across the aisle with us on healthcare reform and now on improving the process at the EPA, instead of working with us to improve science, they are seeking to undermine the integrity of the important scientific work done at the Environmental Protection Agency and bury the Environmental Protection Agency in red tape.

The underlying legislation that this rule talks about has a lot of problems, Mr. Speaker, and so many problems, in fact, I won't even be able to talk about them all during my limited time for debate here. Hopefully they will be able to cover some more during the debate on the bill.

The first issue I want to address that is highly problematic with this bill, and it is something that is so important to the American people--liberal, conservative, and moderate--and that is the issue of privacy.

This bill would undermine the privacy of American families in a number of ways. What it would do is prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency, an agency that exists to protect our health, from taking any action unless it is based on data that is fully available to the public. Now, that sounds good, ``fully available to the public.'' But what does that mean?

You see, normally the EPA has relied on peer-reviewed, scientifically valid research to inform its actions. Now that is something that the process of science across the world informs. It is a very important, well-founded process that respects the efforts of scientists everywhere and the diligence of a peer-reviewed process.

Much of these bodies of work utilize personal health information and confidential data which, currently, are legally protected from public disclosure. The EPA identifies the academic papers that it uses in the Federal Register so we have that transparency, but it doesn't release the legally protected private data--participants in studies, health of people--to the general public nor is there any scientific value to that personal information.

The value is in the studies, which are done scientifically and are already made public. This bill would force the EPA to either ignore these valuable studies because they utilize private

data or violate Federal law by sharing confidential patient information with the general public. We are talking about everything ranging from Social Security numbers, to whether you got cancer from something you were drinking as a child, to our most intimate health or lifestyle issues that are researched by the agency.

The majority here, the Republicans, are trying to include a provision in the bill that allows personally identifiable information to be redacted prior to the EPA making the information available. I am sure my colleague from Georgia will cite that, but that is woefully inefficient because it has a loophole in that very provision that basically negates that provision in another section by allowing the EPA administrator to allow any person who signs a confidentiality agreement to have access to all the redacted data.

So, again, basically, at the whim of the administrator, they can allow companies and people in there--the information can be put in front of people who have access to it, to use it in any way they want, and that is highly personal information.

Again, whether it is under the coverage of a confidentiality agreement or not, it is shown with unknown partners. This is not the Federal agency itself. This is perhaps even the company that caused the pollution that wants to come in and look at it or just various Americans with prurient interests who want to know intimate health details, and there is effectively no protection for that. It is entirely at the whim of the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

So that is an enormous setback for the privacy of American families and a woefully insufficient privacy protection with a loophole that is big enough to drive a truck through. There is not even a numerical limit on the amount of people or corporations that would be allowed access of that data. There could be a blanket permission from the administrator allowing thousands, tens of thousands of people, again, to see the individually identifiable data, including your Social Security Number, including your health details or medical records, including things that affect property value and affect health.

Another major issue with this bill, major fault, is it actually undermines the goal of the Agency itself. The Environmental Protection Agency, which has the congressional mandate to keep our air and water clean, to protect our health, this bill actually does the opposite by burying the Agency under a mountain of red tape and bureaucracy.

This bill removes sound, scientific, objective decisionmaking and replaces it with ridiculous amounts of red tape, adding to the process of regulations, adding to the process of rules, requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to jump through additional bureaucratic hoops to use certain information, and making their entire goal of fulfilling their mission less efficient than if this bill were not the law.

The Environmental Protection Agency already uses a peer-reviewed scientific process. They publish in the Federal Register the reference of the works that they are basing their opinions on, just as the rest of America's scientific community does. This bill undermines the scientific process, is unscientific, and is opposed by so many scientific advocacy organizations, including opposed by the Union of Concerned Scientists who are strongly opposed to this legislation.

Now, on top of the red tape and antiscience aspects of the bill, this would also cost the government $1 billion of EPA funds; that is according to analysis of a very similar bill last Congress. These are funds that would be diverted away from protecting our health and safety, which is what they are doing now, toward creating more red tape and bureaucracy for the very agency that the American people entrust with the goal of keeping our air and water clean and the American people healthy.

Look, we all know what this bill is. It is a thinly veiled attack on science, part of the antiscience agenda that we are seeing from the Republican Party.

The budget that the President offered earlier this month cuts science funding to the bone. Enormous setbacks in the very research into lifesaving science in the future that would help improve our quality of life and duration of life and help our economy boom are being devastated under the President's budgets.

Scientific research creates billions of dollars of economic impact and innovation in States like mine, Colorado, and every other State. Science helps keep us healthy. It keeps crops alive and productive. It keeps our businesses open and keeps America as a global leader in innovation.

I also want to take a moment to highlight that, while this bill is being heard on the floor today, President Trump is signing an executive order that effectively repeals all of the work that the Environmental Protection Agency and other Federal agencies have done in the last 8 years to protect our planet from the impacts of climate change.

Unfortunately, while we focus on a bill that forces scientists to not use the best science available, the President has signed an executive order that will essentially begin the repeal process of the Clean Power Plan. The Clean Power Plan is a basic requirement for States to bring their emissions down to a sustainable level to protect Americans' health, to reduce the amount of pollution in our air and water, and to reduce the human impact on climate change.

The executive order also, unfortunately, undermines some of the commonsense protections we have with regard to fracking, something that is near and dear to my constituents and people in Colorado, as an area that is impacted by extraction activities.

This repeal, for example, would allow oil and gas companies to hide the chemicals that they use when producing oil and natural gas. Picture that: fracking wells near homes and schools who would no longer have to report what chemicals could potentially be leaking into drinking water or groundwater. How can that possibly further our goal to protect the health and welfare of the American people?

So, at the same time, we have this legislation undermining the scientific process of the Environmental Protection Agency and burying the Environmental Protection Agency under red tape, coordinated the same week with the President's disastrous executive order that will hurt the health of the American people and, ultimately, cost lives.

These are just another step in the undermining of science and the work to improve and protect the health of the people of our country. The Environmental Protection Agency relies on the best science available when developing new standards, and they are fully transparent about posting those scientific studies.

However, because many of the studies that this bill requires would impact legally protected private data, like personal medical records, to reach their findings, the Environmental Protection Agency could even be prohibited from considering that research.

This ridiculous restriction would force the EPA to ignore a lot of relevant information because of the desire of the researchers and the legal imperative of the researchers to protect the private data of the participants, ultimately leading to policies that are ineffective and are not based on sound facts or science.

Mr. Speaker, facts exist. Science and the pursuit of truth is an incredibly important human endeavor, and we can't afford to disregard that quest for truth in the name of a fiction-based reality that we increasingly seem to be headed toward as a nation.

Without sound and strong science, America will fall behind in the world. Americans will--our lifespans will be of lower quality and lower duration, and our economy will be hurt as we cede our leadership role to more forward-looking countries willing to invest in the future.

If this bill had been in place over the last few decades, I am pretty sure that the cloud of smog over Denver, Colorado, would probably still be there. Rivers and lakes across this country would suffer from pollution in a significantly worse way, and that is not the future that the American people want.

If the EPA is prevented from using the best available peer-reviewed research data on air quality, asthma will be causing more attacks and, yes, even deaths of children across our country.

Let's see this legislation for what it is--an attack on science, a giveaway to corporations who benefit from pollution, who don't like the fact that the EPA is using sound silence, who want to create and live in their own fictional

reality, where the externalities of their actions somehow don't matter.

We need the truth. The American people deserve the truth. We deserve the benefit of the outcome of the process of objective science, and this bill undermines that by burying the Environmental Protection Agency under immense red tape, while preventing them from using some of the very peer-reviewed studies that would lead to the very best decisionmaking possible to protect the health of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I have some scoring from the Congressional Budget Office, dated March 11, 2015, that I include into the Record.

H.R. 1030--Secret Science Reform Act of 2015

As ordered reported by the House Committee on Science, Space, and

Technology on March 3, 2015

This is based on H.R. 1030 from last session, the Secret Science Reform Act of 2015, effectively the same operating provisions as this new bill. If there are any cost-saving elements in this new bill that weren't in H.R. 1030, I would encourage my colleague from Georgia to let us know because we are voting without scoring or costs on the newest version of this legislation. The previous version of this legislation, as I mentioned earlier, would cost $250 million annually over the next several years, $1 billion to implement, and that is the scoring from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office whose director was appointed by the Republicans on a substantially similar bill.

Mr. Speaker, we are deeply concerned by reports from our intelligence community regarding Russian interference in last year's election. Even more troubling is FBI Director Comey's sworn testimony that the FBI is now investigating the possibility of collusion between members of President Trump's campaign team and Russia.

Mr. Speaker, the legitimacy of our electoral system is at stake; and, frankly, it is time that we rise above partisanship and that we get our job done and get to the bottom of this.

Unfortunately, recent actions by the House Intelligence Committee chairman have left many Members of both sides of the aisle convinced and the American public convinced that the committee is unable to conduct an impartial investigation of this critical matter of national security.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer up an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative Swalwell's and Representative Cummings' bill which would create a bipartisan commission to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Swalwell), a member of the Intelligence Committee, to discuss our proposal.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from California.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the EPA protecting our quality of life, our air, and our water has nothing to do with Heaven or God. It is based on science. Individual Americans like Mr. Gohmert and myself have our own faith traditions. I don't think there is anybody in the country whose faith tradition is to worship the EPA.

We have created the EPA for a purpose: to protect the health of the American people and protect our air and water. There are people alive today and people who are healthier today because of the work of the EPA. The converse of that, without the Environmental Protection Agency, some of us wouldn't even be here and others of us would be sickly.

It really doesn't make any sense to talk about people worshipping the EPA. We respect the scientific work of the EPA, and maybe this confusion between faith and science is what is leading to the undermining of the scientific aspects that the EPA reaches their conclusions on.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter that shows the strong opposition from those who advocate for our health against this bill. Alliance of Nurses, American Lung Association, American Public Health Association, National Medical Association, Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, and others have all signed a letter in opposition to this bill because this bill threatens the health of the American people.

March 27, 2017.

Dear Representative: The undersigned health and medical

organizations are writing to express our opposition to the

EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2017 and the Honest

and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act of 2017. Our

organizations are dedicated to saving lives and improving

public health.

Science is the bedrock of sound medical and public health

decision-making. The best science undergirds everything our

organizations do to improve health. Under the Clean Air Act,

EPA has long implemented a transparent and open process for

seeking advice from the medical and scientific community on

standards and measures to meet those standards. Both of these

bills would restrict the input of scientific experts in the

review of complex issues and add undue industry influence

into EPA's decision-making process.

As written, the EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act would

make unneeded and unproductive changes that would:

Restrict the ability of scientists to speak on issues that

include their own expertise;

Block scientists who receive any EPA grants from serving on

the EPA Scientific Advisory Board, despite their having the

expertise and conducted relevant research that earned them

these highly competitive grants;

Prevent the EPA Scientific Advisory Board from making

policy recommendations, even though EPA administrators have

regularly sought their advice in the past;

Add a notice and comment component to all parts of the EPA

Scientific Advisory Board actions, a burdensome and

unnecessary requirement since their reviews of major issues

already include public notice and comment; and

Reallocate membership requirements to increase the

influence of industry representatives on the scientific

advisory panels.

In short, EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act would limit

the voice of scientists, restrict the ability of the Board to

respond to important questions, and increase the influence of

industry in shaping EPA policy. This is not in the best

interest of the American public.

We also have concerns with the HONEST Act. This legislation

would limit the kinds of scientific data EPA can use as it

develops policy to protect the American public from

environmental exposures and permit violation of patient

confidentiality. If enacted, the legislation would:

Allow the EPA administrator to release confidential patient

information to third parties, including industry;

Bolster industry's flawed arguments to discredit research

that documents the adverse health effects of environmental

pollution; and

Impose new standards for the publication and distribution

of scientific research that go beyond the robust, existing

requirements of many scientific journals.

Science, developed by the respected men and women

scientists at colleges and universities across the United

States, has always been the foundation of the nation's

environmental policy. EPA's science-based decision-making

process has saved lives and led to dramatic improvements in

the quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink and the

earth we share. All Americans have benefited from the

research-based scientific advice that scientists have

provided to EPA.

Congress should adopt policy that fortifies our scientists,

not bills that undermine the scientific integrity of EPA's

decision-making or give polluters a disproportionate voice in

EPA's policy-setting process.

We strongly urge you to oppose these bills.

Sincerely,

Katie Huffling, RN, CNM,

Director, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments.

Harold P. Wimmer,

National President and CEO, American Lung Association.

Georges C. Benjamin, MD,

Executive Director, American Public Health Association.

Stephen C. Crane, Ph.D., MPH,

Executive Director, American Thoracic Society.

Cary Sennett, MD, Ph.D.,

Last Congress, we considered a bill called the Secret Science Act, which was nearly identical to this bill. That was a bill that I submitted was at a cost of billion dollars. If the gentleman from Georgia has any evidence that this bill will cost less, I encourage him to bring it forward.

This bill, frankly, would force the EPA to be dishonest, to not use the best available science, and threaten the privacy of the American people.

Our goal should be to help the agencies that we charge with protecting our health to use the best possible science to do the best possible job that they can. We should not be throwing up roadblocks and red tape and bureaucratic mazes that hurt the quality of work and the science that we base our protections on.

We need to protect American lives from things like dirty air, dirty water, and pollution. We should protect the privacy of all Americans, but this bill doesn't protect the privacy of Americans. It undermines the goal of the Environmental Protection Agency.

My colleague, Mr. Swalwell, brought forward a very important motion. When we defeat the previous question, we have a motion to create a bipartisan commission to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election.

That is what I hear about from my constituents. I haven't heard from any constituents that say: We want our personal data to be revealed by the Environmental Protection Agency or we want to stop them from citing scientific papers.

That is simply not on the minds of the American people.

What is on the minds of the American people is that we need a full accounting for the Russian interference in the 2016 election, which is why we have a bill to create a bipartisan commission to investigate that Russian interference in a manner that has credibility with the American people, that can end this increasingly bizarre spy novel that seems to be unfolding in this city that we are meeting in now, and replace it with investigations and facts and a full accounting for the American people as to what happened and who was involved.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to inquire if the gentleman from Georgia has any information as to why the new bill would cost any different amount than the prior version of the bill from the last Congress that was scored?

I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Reclaiming my time, what the bill essentially does is two things in this regard. One, it will foist an unfunded mandate onto those who are conducting the research to go through the effort themselves of releasing the data. But more perniciously, it will prevent data and scientific studies that there are legal protections from even being looked at by the Environmental Protection Agency. They won't even be able to consider that data.

I think it is important that we get back to the topics that the American people care about. I hope that we can move forward with Representatives Swalwell's and Cummings' bill to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the Russian influence in the 2016 election rather than attack and undermine science, attack and undermine privacy, and attack and undermine the American people.

This bill undermines our privacy protections and opens the door for more Americans to get sick and hurt by pollution in our air and water. I hope that we can stand up against that.

Mr. Speaker, I ask Members to vote ``no'' on this bill and vote ``no'' on this rule.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 233, I call up the bill (H.R. 1431) to amend the Environmental Research, Development, and Demonstration Authorization Act of 1978 to provide for Scientific Advisory Board member qualifications, public participation, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the bill, H.R. 1431.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I thank Chairman Smith and Environment Subcommittee Chairman Biggs for their hard work on this important piece of legislation. I also thank my good friend, Representative

Peterson for, yet again, working--helping, I should say--to make this bill a bipartisan effort. I appreciate his willingness to sponsor this bill with me.

I had the opportunity to speak in favor of this legislation when it passed this House with bipartisan support in the 114th Congress. Now, I come to the floor yet again to urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this important reform. The SAB Reform Act was a good bill then, and it is a good bill now. This is a policy that is built on the values we should uphold regardless of which side of the political aisle we are on or who happens to be the President.

H.R. 1431, the Science Advisory Board Reform Act, ensures the best experts are free to undertake a balanced and open review of regulatory science. The Board was established to provide scientific advice to the EPA and Congress, and to review the quality and relevance of science EPA uses for regulations. But in recent years, shortcomings with the process have arisen. Opportunities for public participation have been limited, potential conflicts of interest have gone unchecked, and the ability of the Board to speak independently has been curtailed.

If the administration undermines the Board's independence or prevents it from providing advice to Congress, the valuable advice these experts can provide is wasted.

Despite the existing requirement that the EPA's advisory panels be fairly balanced in terms of point of view represented, the Science, Space, and Technology Committee has identified a number of past problems that have undermined the panel's credibility and work product. These include a number of advisory members who received money from the EPA. At the very least, this could create the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Some of the panelists have taken public and even political positions on issues they are advising about. For example, a lead reviewer of the EPA's hydraulic fracking study published an anti-fracking article titled, ``Regulate, Baby, Regulate.'' Now, this clearly is not an objective viewpoint, and should be publicly disclosed.

Public participation is limited during most board meetings. Interested parties have almost no ability to comment on the scope of the work, and meeting records are often incomplete and hard to obtain.

This bill is both pro-science, and pro-sound science. This bill is founded upon recommendations for reform outlined by the National Academy of Sciences, and the EPA's Peer Review Handbook. This bill ensures that the Board is balanced, transparent, and independent, all of which will help prevent the SAB from being manipulated by any group.

H.R. 1431 makes sound science the driving force of the Board, no matter who is the chief executive officer of our government.

Perhaps most importantly, this bill seeks to increase public participation that benefits all stakeholders. Currently, valuable opportunities for diverse perspectives are limited. The Federal Government does not have a monopoly on the truth. Ask your constituents back home if they know that.

The public has important expertise that can't afford to be ignored in a democracy. State, local, tribal, and private sectors have a long history of qualified scientific experts. Their contributions should be taken seriously.

Unfortunately, the history of the SAB shows that private sector representation is often lacking or simply nonexistent. Instead, in the past, EPA has picked the Board, ignoring the knowledge, experience, and contributions of those experts. This bill ensures that qualified experts are not excluded simply due to their affiliation. This will add value and credibility to future Board reviews.

Mr. Peterson and I recognize the important role science should play in our policy debates and provides safeguards to give the public confidence in science. It restores the independent Science Advisory Board as a defender of scientific integrity.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith), the chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, a fellow who has worked very diligently on the committee for many years.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Higgins), a member of the Environment Subcommittee of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I include in the Record the following letters: a letter of support from the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, a letter of support from the American Chemistry Council, a letter

of support from the National Cotton Council of America, another letter of support from the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, a letter of support from the Independent Petroleum Association of America, a letter of support from the CO2 Coalition, and a letter of support from the Cato Institute.

Chamber of Commerce of the

United States of America,

Washington, DC, March 29, 2017.

To the Members of the U.S. House of Representatives: The

U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports the ``Honest and Open New

EPA Science Treatment (HONEST) Act of 2017'' and the ``EPA

Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2017.'' These bills

would improve the transparency and reliability of scientific

and technical information that Federal agencies rely heavily

upon to support new regulatory actions.

The HONEST Act is designed to ensure that the studies and

data Federal agencies cite when they write new regulations,

standards, guidance, assessments of risk--or take other

regulatory action--are clearly identified and available for

public review. Additionally, information must be sufficiently

transparent to allow study findings to be reproduced and

validated. This is a critical safeguard to assure the public

that the data Federal agencies rely on is scientifically

sound, unbiased, and reliable.

The EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2017 would

help ensure that the Science Advisory Board (SAB), which

directly counsels the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA) on key scientific and technical issues, is unbiased and

transparent in performing its duties. The bill would

establish requirements that SAB members are qualified

experts, that conflicts of interest and sources of bias are

disclosed, that the views of members--including dissenting

members--are available to the public, and that the public has

the opportunity to participate in the advisory activities of

the Board and view EPA's responses. Because EPA relies on SAB

reviews and studies to support new regulations, standards,

guidance, assessments of risk, and other actions, the actions

of the SAB must be transparent and accountable. This is a

critical safeguard to assure the public that the data Federal

agencies rely on is scientifically sound and unbiased.

The HONEST Act and the EPA Science Advisory Board Reform

Act would improve the transparency and trustworthiness of

scientific and technical reviews and information that

agencies, including EPA, rely on to justify regulatory

actions that can significantly affect society. The American

public must have confidence that the scientific and technical

data driving regulatory action can be trusted. Accordingly,

the Chamber supports these important bills.

Sincerely,

Neil L. Bradley,

Senior Vice President & Chief Policy

Officer, Government Affairs.

Mr. Speaker, I would note to the body, part of the challenge that we face here today on this bill is like so many challenges we face as Members of Congress: How do you avoid the short- term perspective? How do you take the long view? How do you set into motion things that, while they might not, perhaps, give us the great advantage in the short-term sense that either side of the room would want, in the long-term, they are in the best interest of the body?

I would remind my colleagues, the Scientific Advisory Board is appointed by the EPA; the EPA is managed by the Director; the Director is appointed by the President of the United States. If you believe that the work product, if you believe that the rules that have been generated by this in recent years reflect your perspective, I understand that, but nothing is ever static.

We have recently had a change of administration. We have a change of direction in the leadership of the EPA. That will be reflected in all the appointments and the actions of the EPA.

I implore my colleagues, we need to work in the perspective of what is in the long-term interest; and that long-term interest is providing scientific review at the SAB that our fellow citizens have confidence in and that will generate good rules and regulations when they have to be created.

Following this course of action advocated in H.R. 1431 will not make my most conservative constituents happy because they want to duplicate what they believe my most liberal constituents have advocated for years, but our goal here is not to empower one or the other side in these perspectives to force their will upon the country. Our responsibility with the SAB is to create a process where we can have confidence in the results and where, when appropriate, the end resulting regulations, the rules that come from it, will be in the best long-term interest of the Nation as a whole.

I know there are requirements in here that, if you have taken money as a scientist to do a research project from the EPA, you have to cool off for 3 years. But what is wrong with allowing a little separation between the people who take money to do the studies and then become the judges of other studies in the knowledge that perhaps the people who have done the studies will judge their studies? What is wrong with that?

And the public disclosure about allowing people with knowledge and expertise to participate, too, if they have

a conflict through these disclosures, we will know. I would hope that whoever leads the EPA on whatever day would act in a responsible fashion.

I just want, through this bill, to change the system so that the perception is out there that the SAB and the scientific process and the rulemaking that comes from it at EPA are being gained by one perspective or the other because that is in no one's best interest.

I know we live in tough times and challenging times to legislate. I think my colleagues know, in the legislation I have worked on before, that I have always worked across the aisle. I have always worked with every perspective within this body. I have always tried to take that long-ball perspective. I know it is a challenging time, but think about that as we continue this well-meaning, good-spirited, very focused debate.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert), the former chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology's Subcommittee on Environment.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record the second set of letters which I referred to earlier.

National Association of

Home Builders,

Washington, DC, March 8, 2017.

Hon. Lamar Smith,

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Smith: On behalf of the 140,000 members of

the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), I am

writing to express NAHB's strong support for the Honest and

Open New EPA Science Treatment Act of 2017 and the EPA

Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2017. These bills would

ensure an open and honest scientific process by allowing the

public access to the science that underpins regulations

developed by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and

ensuring that scientists advising the EPA on regulatory

decisions are not the same scientists receiving EPA grants.

It is important for the EPA to use sound science in order

to support their rulemakings. Far too often, the EPA relies

on science that lacks transparency and reliability to

buttress their rulemakings. This is a consequence of the EPA

conducting their scientific review of rulemakings behind

closed doors. The EPA frequently ignores scientific integrity

by limiting public participation, excluding state and private

sector expertise, and pushing a specific agenda by appointing

scientists who are biased. In some cases, scientists that

have been appointed to review proposed regulations have

received EPA grants which the EPA disregards as a conflict of

interest.

The EPA should not be able to create costly regulations

without being transparent, fair and open to public input when

considering the science behind a rulemaking. However, the EPA

has sacrificed the integrity of the rulemaking process by

using biased science to push their agenda. It is important to

address these shortcomings so that future rules can be

transparent and honest.

For these reasons, NAHB urges the House Science, Space and

Technology Committee to support the Honest and Open New EPA

Science Treatment Act of 2017 and the EPA Science Advisory

Board Reform Act of 2017, in order to bring transparency and

integrity to the regulatory process.

Thank you for giving consideration to our views.

Sincerely,

James W. Tobin III,

Executive Vice President & Chief Lobbyist, Government

Affairs and Communications Group.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, again, I reiterate to my colleagues, this is a situation where the goal really is not to empower one perspective or one faction over another. The goal, ultimately, of this bill--and, yes, this did come out of the inspector general's report, the initial work and effort. The goal of the bill is to add transparency, accountability. The goal of the bill is to increase the American people's confidence in the work product that is then used by the EPA to craft the rules and regulations that impact every life in this country on a daily basis.

Whatever your perspective may be, remember, the pendulum in this great Nation, when it comes to the executive branch, in my time, every 8 years, has swung back and forth. Just because at the present moment or the past moment you think you got your perspective's way, or if perhaps you think with the pendulum swing now you will get your perspective's way, that is not what the focus should be here.

I would also remind my colleagues, in my 23 years, I have served in the minority soon to be for 4\1/2\ years. But the other 18\1/2\ years, I have served in the majority. I have served in the majority. So when I step up to you and say we can do better, we can enhance the quality of information, we can do it in a way that the American people have more confidence in ultimately what goes on, and we can do it in a way that makes it more difficult for anyone to hijack the process, I say that sincerely.

There is nothing wrong with full disclosure for everyone who can add to the process, who should be available for consideration. There is nothing wrong with a financial cooling-off between benefiting from the studies and analyzing someone else's studies. There is nothing wrong with this.

But if you stay with the status quo, this Board and this Agency are in change. Get ready for 8 years of a dramatically different way of doing things.

Now, maybe you are so confident that the pendulum will swing back again that you are willing to accept that. But as for me, I want to stay between the lines. I want to focus in ways that, for the long term, represent the best interests of this great country.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to vote for H.R. 1431. I ask my colleagues to think about 10 or 20 years down the road. I ask my colleagues to put the long-term best interests of their constituents first.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

I claim the time in opposition to the motion, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I look at this language--and I am a farmer by trade; I am not an attorney; I will confess that--but the phrase ``or other entity'' seems to be a very broad concept. How will that affect people who work for research foundations at institutions of higher education? How will that affect entities, people who are part of so- called think tanks in places like Washington, D.C.? I personally believe the language is intended more to simply turn the bill inside out.

On that basis, I would ask my colleagues to reject the motion to recommit with instructions and to pass the underlying bill.

But I go one step further, and I offer this in the most sincerest of ways: if you look at the discussion today and if you look at the discussion that has gone on for some time on these issues, it is almost as though there are those with certain perspectives who are trying to force their will--their perspective of what is right and wrong scientifically or economically or socially--on the rest of the country, on the rest of us, and, for that matter, on the rest of the world.

That is why I am the author of this bill. No one entity should have the power by manipulating the bureaucratic process or the rulemaking process to enforce their definitions of everything on the rest of us. We have both the right and the responsibility to judge this information and to make decisions about what is in our enlightened self-interest, as the old economist would say, or in the best interest of the country or of society as a whole.

That is why I want all of us--the great American people--to have access and some certainty about the people and the process that are driving everything in our world.

Reject the motion, pass the bill, create greater transparency, incorporate more input, and when it is necessary to have rules and regulations, generate good rules and regulations so that we all have a chance to prosper and to live up to our potential in this country. Don't let the tyranny of the idealistic--whatever perspective they may have--drive us all into despair and destruction.

With that, I respectfully ask my colleagues to reject this motion and pass the underlying bill.

I yield back the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Mr. McGOVERN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I thank the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Newhouse), my good friend, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule and the underlying legislation. This is the 23rd closed rule of this short, new Congress. Both Democrats and Republicans have been denied the opportunity to amend nearly 60 percent of the legislation that has been brought to the floor through the House Rules Committee.

This effort by Speaker Ryan and the Republican leadership to halt a fair and open debate in the people's House is outrageous. We are supposed to be a deliberative body where both parties get to deliberate. These Putinesque rules that shut down all debate need to stop. This isn't the Kremlin.

You know, I think Representative Rooney, a Republican, said it best last week: ``I've been in this job for 8 years, and I'm wracking my brain to think of one thing our party has done that's been something positive, that's been something other than stopping something else from happening.''

Well, Mr. Speaker, today we are considering a piece of legislation that seeks to prevent the EPA from protecting public health and the environment--not exactly positive.

This bill was brought to the Rules Committee in an emergency meeting last night. And let me emphasize that, an emergency meeting.

Mr. Speaker, I think the American people have a pretty good idea of what is and what isn't an emergency. A tree falls on your house, that is an emergency. Your rose bush needs pruning, not an emergency. Timmy fell down a well, that is an emergency. Timmy might stub his toe, not an emergency.

On April 28, the government will run out of money. That is an emergency, even if it is self-inflicted by the Republicans. And we have no shortage of other actual emergencies that we should be dealing with: a devastating opioid epidemic, crumbling roads and bridges, mounting evidence of Russian meddling in our election, and people being killed every day due to gun violence, not to mention Flint, Michigan, is still dealing with the residual health effects of toxically polluted water.

These are just a few examples of actual emergencies that Congress is doing nothing to address. Instead, the underlying bill, the EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act, is brought to the Rules Committee and to the House floor as an emergency piece of legislation.

As we learned last week, the American people are paying attention to what we do here. They are smart enough to know what an emergency is. And this bill isn't addressing an emergency, Mr. Speaker; it is creating one.

The Science Advisory Board at the EPA provides a way for the Agency to use sound, independent, and objective scientific data to help make their decisions. Science, Mr. Speaker--you may have heard of it--is kind of a big deal.

But this bill won't help the EPA to include more scientists in the decisions. It will force them to include people with potential financial conflicts of interest on the Science Advisory Board so long as they disclose them. I mean, do we really want people on our advisory boards if they could profit from a decision that they are about to make? There is nothing scientific about corruption, and this is exactly what this bill will open the door to.

This bill also limits the participation of scientific experts at the EPA, leading to a disproportionate representation of big business and corporate special interests. Are these really the people we want making decisions about the health of our kids and the policies that should be protecting our environment? Is that what we want?

So what is this bill really about? Well, it is about allowing the Republicans' big corporate cronies a direct route to the decisionmakers at the EPA. It is about disrupting the EPA's ability to fairly enforce the rules, hold corporate polluters accountable, and protect our health. It is about undermining scientific fact with political cronyism.

Now, maybe things have changed lately. It has been a while since my last science class. But I am pretty sure there is no step in the scientific method that says consult corporate cronies. The truth is that this Republican majority wants the EPA to base their decisions on fiction, not fact.

Americans can't afford to have the EPA run by people who live in a fantasyland where facts and science don't matter. Our environment and the health of our families are too important.

This law is going to have real-life consequences. It undermines science, hurts the environment, and it helps polluters. We need to allow the EPA to make decisions based on fact. We need to ensure that EPA is always free from financial conflicts, not making decisions based on panels filled with industry insiders like the ones that this bill would create.

Mr. Speaker, this bill defies logic. It defies reason. It defies sanity. It will hurt the people who sent us here, and it will help polluters. Republicans are putting corporate greed ahead of public health, and the American people will be the ones who will suffer. Americans deserve better. We should be fighting on behalf of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, let me tell my Republican friends what I tell first graders that I talk to back in my district in Massachusetts when I go to visit their schools. I usually begin by telling them that science is important. It is a big deal, and it is such a big deal that all our schools teach it. And if you do your homework and if you study hard and you pay attention, you might grow up someday to become a scientist, and scientists are people who dedicate their lives to protecting the health and well-being of people all over the world, and they dedicate their lives to protecting our planet.

Scientists tell us things that are really important. They tell us things like climate change is caused by greenhouse gasses, something my Republican friends continually deny. They tell us that polluted air can give children asthma. They tell us that lead in children's drinking water causes learning problems. They tell us pesticide exposure can cause cancer. These are important things.

We all learned in school, thanks to science, that the Earth orbits around the Sun, that gravity causes this pen to fall when I drop it, that plants turn sunshine into energy, that dinosaurs roamed the Earth millions of years ago.

Mr. Speaker, the first graders I talk to, they get it. They understand the importance of science. Unfortunately, many of my colleagues in this Chamber do not. And I would bet that those first graders understand the importance of making sure that it is scientists who sit on scientific advisory boards and not corporate cronies.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for his speech, but it was on a different bill than the one we are talking about right now. That was a rule we debated yesterday. The rule passed, but we are going to be talking about it today. So I was a little confused trying to follow the gentleman.

I also want to remind the gentleman that he mentioned Donald Trump's election. I will remind him that less than half of the people of the United States actually voted for him. Hillary won the popular vote by close to 3 million. The gentleman keeps on talking about a better way, a better way, a better way.

Was that what was on display last week when we spent 15 hours in the Rules Committee debating a repeal-and-replace bill on health care that only 16 percent of the American people thought was worth it and that had to be pulled because it was such a lousy process?

If that is the better way, I don't think people want anything to do with it.

I would say to the gentleman, my colleague, Mr. Newhouse, who is talking about trying to justify the closed process and saying that some of these bills were CRAs, just repealing regulations, well, my friends chose to bring up these repeal regulation bills under a very closed process. Interestingly enough, these rules were made under a very open process where agencies solicited input from stakeholders and from the public, and it was all out in the open. But the Republicans chose to bring measures to the floor to repeal regulations in such a way that that agency can't even go back and revisit the same subject of that particular regulation.

I think people need to understand this. I don't think I can ever recall a more closed, authoritarian process than the one that we have experienced under this leadership. This is not only something that I know Democrats have a problem with; I know a lot of Republicans do, too, because what this closed process means is that anybody with a good idea can't bring it to the floor and can't have an opportunity to debate the issue.

It was funny last night in the Rules Committee, my colleague from Texas (Mr. Burgess) was kind of crowing about the fact that no amendments were brought before the Rules Committee. I reminded him the reason why no amendments were brought before the Rules Committee is because this bill was noticed as an emergency and there was no call for amendments. Members weren't asked to bring their ideas or their amendments to the Rules Committee. This would be laughable if it weren't so tragic. I would say to my colleagues that it is this same closed process that brought us this disastrous health repeal bill that my friends had to pull last week that is on display today. When you have a lousy process, you end up with lousy legislation.

This is the people's House. We are supposed to deliberate, and here is a radical idea: let us deliberate a little bit. Open it up. Open it up a little bit. Let there be some amendments on both sides of the aisle.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question. If we defeat the previous question, I will bring to the floor an amendment, which I am going to talk about right now because, Mr. Speaker, we are deeply concerned by reports from our intelligence community regarding Russian interference in last year's election and even more troubled by FBI Director Comey's sworn testimony that the FBI is now investigating the possibility of collusion between members of President Trump's campaign team and Russia.

Mr. Speaker, the legitimacy of our electoral system is at stake, and it is time that this Republican-controlled Congress does its job and gets to the bottom of this. Unfortunately, recent actions by the House Intelligence Committee chairman have left many Members from both sides of the aisle convinced that the committee will not be able to conduct an impartial investigation of this crucial matter of national security.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up Representative Swalwell's and Representative Cummings' bill, which would create a bipartisan commission to investigate Russian interference in our 2016 election. For the life of me I don't know why this is controversial. My colleagues on the Republican side should be just as interested in getting to the truth and getting to the truth in a way that has credibility with the American people as we on the Democratic side do.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly) to discuss our proposal.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire from the gentleman how many more speakers he has?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let me first remind Members that we are asking for a ``no'' vote on the previous question. If the previous question is defeated, we will bring up an amendment that will allow the bill that Representative Swalwell and Representative Cummings have introduced, which would create a bipartisan commission to investigate Russian interference in our 2016 election.

This is the appropriate place to do it because we are blocked in every other way in terms of trying to bring this to the floor, and the Rules Committee is a committee that prioritizes legislation that helps set the agenda, so this ought to be part of it. This anti-science bill can still be debated and voted on. It won't derail that, but it will allow the House to be able to deliberate on this bill that would create a bipartisan commission to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election.

This is a big deal. The American people deserve the truth. My Republican colleagues ought to get out of the way and allow this commission to be created so that the American people can actually have some trust in a process that determines the extent to which the Russians interfered in our election.

Again, I would urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question.

With regard to the rule that we are debating today, I would again remind everybody that this is a closed rule. There are some Members of this House who have never seen an open rule, ever. I hope that changes because I do think that, again, there ought to be more deliberation here, there ought to be more back and forth. Even ideas that I strongly disagree with on the Republican side, they ought to have the opportunity to come here and be able to present them and we can vote up or down on them.

I think we need to break this pattern of shutting the process down. It is what resulted in the debacle last week with your horrible healthcare bill, the one that only 16 percent of the American people supported. It is pretty hard to get that low, but my friends managed to be able to set a new record on unpopular legislation--so bad that it had to be withdrawn from the floor for consideration.

I would argue it is the closed, authoritarian-like process that produced a lousy bill. If my friends continue to adhere to this closed process, they are going to get more lousy pieces of legislation that are going to do great harm to the American people brought to this floor.

This bill that is before us today, again, has been brought to the floor under this expedited procedure called an emergency provision. It is just being rushed to the floor as an emergency.

This is not an emergency. The opioid crisis is an emergency; the crisis in Flint, Michigan, is an emergency; our crumbling infrastructure is an emergency. There are deficient bridges and roads in every one of our congressional districts. That is an emergency. We need to address that.

Keeping the government open is an emergency. But to say this is an emergency is kind of ridiculous. It is not an emergency. It is kind of like our house is on fire and you are saying: I will get out the hose later, but I need to wash the dishes first.

That is how this kind of fits into what we are doing here today. This doesn't qualify for that.

On the substance of the bill, we have this radical idea that scientists ought to sit on scientific advisory committees, not corporate cronies, not people who are interested in covering up for polluters or doing their bidding. We think experts and scientists ought to sit on scientific advisory boards. That is the radical idea that we have. This bill, unfortunately, undermines that.

What this bill does is threaten public health by stacking advisory boards with industry representatives, and it weakens scientific review. It is that simple. I don't care what your political ideology is, I don't think you want that.

Let me just mention some of the groups that are opposed to this:

The Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, American Geophysical Union, and the American Lung Association strongly oppose this bill. The American Public Health Association, the American Thoracic Society, and the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America oppose this bill. Clean Water Action opposes this bill. Earthjustice, the Environmental Defense Action Fund, Health Care Without Harm, League of Conservation Voters, and the National Medical Association oppose this bill. The Natural Resources Defense Council, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Union of Concerned Scientists all oppose this bill. The Food Policy Action opposes this bill.

I can go on and on. Every organization that is an advocate for the health and well-being of the American people oppose this bill. We are bringing it up for an up-or-down vote, no amendments, a closed rule, and here we are.

I would just say, Mr. Speaker, again, this is a bad idea. I guess if you are an ally of big corporations or of corporations that engage in pollution, this is a good idea. But if you are interested in protecting the health and well-being of the American people, and the globe, for that matter, this is a bad idea.

As I began, I mentioned that when I speak to first-graders, they understand the importance of science. They get it. They want us to be good stewards of the environment. They want us to protect this planet. They understand the importance of science.

But I am always amazed how many people in this Chamber just don't get it. I find that really sad. I want to give my kids, and someday my grandkids and great grandkids, a future where we respect the environment. When we pass bills like this, it makes that less certain.

Mr. Speaker, I would urge my colleagues again to vote ``no'' on the previous question and, please, in a bipartisan way, reject this lousy piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 233 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday, the House Rules Committee met and reported a rule, House Resolution 233, providing for consideration of H.R. 1431, the EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2017. This legislation will reform the Environmental Protection Agency, or the EPA, Science Advisory Board to ensure that it is unbiased and transparent in performing its duties.

The SAB, the Science Advisory Board, was first established by Congress in 1978 and plays a vital role in reviewing the scientific foundation of EPA's regulatory decisions, while also providing critical advice to us here in Congress as well as the Agency. The information it reviews is used to justify important policy decisions at the EPA and should be held to the highest standards because it is imperative that the regulated community and the public can have confidence that EPA decisions are grounded, that science should be both reproducible and transparent.

However, shortcomings with the current process have arisen in recent years, including limited public participation, EPA interference with expert advice, potential conflicts of interest, and serious deficiencies with the process to select the board members. Far too often, the SAB's authority has been used by the EPA to silence dissenting scientific views and opinions, rather than promoting the impartiality and fairness that is the cornerstone of unbiased scientific advice.

At its inception, the SAB was intended to function independently in order to provide candid advice and guidance to the EPA. Yet, if the Agency undermines this autonomy, then the SAB's value to both the EPA and Congress, I believe, is severely diminished.

Mr. Speaker, to address these issues, H.R. 1431 would reform the SAB and reaffirm its independence so the public and regulated entities can have that confidence that sound science is driving policy decisions at the EPA.

The bill makes several important reforms to the SAB, such as requiring board members to be qualified experts; disclosing conflicts of interest and sources of bias; and ensuring that the views of members, including the dissenting members, are available to the public. It provides the public with the opportunity to participate in the advisory activities of the board and gives people the ability to view the agency's responses to issues raised by the SAB.

Additionally, the bill requires that at least 10 percent of the board is comprised of State, local, and tribal experts; that board members do not participate in advisory activities that involve reviews or evaluations of their own work; and that EPA publicly disclose all board member recusals; and that comments are published in the Federal Register.

So these reforms will improve the existing regulatory process, while also reinvigorating the scientific judgements that are often directly linked to regulatory decisions.

The EPA relies on SAB reviews and studies to support new regulations, new standards, assessments, and other Agency actions. A transparent and accountable Science Advisory Board is critically important and can assure the public that the data that Federal agencies rely on is scientifically sound and unbiased.

This legislation would reinforce that the SAB process is a tool to help policymakers with complex issues, while also preventing the EPA from taking actions that impede the free flow of impartial scientific advice.

Mr. Speaker, this rule provides for consideration of an important measure that will improve the peer review process and ensure sound science is used in the Federal rulemaking process. It is a simple, relatively straightforward bill that will make the SAB more consistent, transparent, and accountable to our bosses, the American people.

Transparency in regulations based on the highest quality science should not be a partisan issue. In the 114th Congress, a nearly identical version of this bill was passed by the House, I am glad to say, with bipartisan support. I hope we can join together again to pass this important bill with support from Members of both sides of the aisle, from both parties.

I urge my colleagues to support this rule as well as the underlying legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I appreciate the gentleman's comments. In fact, some of those comments he was making I thought he was quoting me, or at least quoting parts of my own speech.

Certainly, I agree that the decisions made by the Environmental Protection Agency should be based on fact, not by industry insiders, and that is exactly

what this legislation would do. I can't think of any instance where asking for more full public participation as well as transparency is not a positive step, and that is exactly what we are trying to do here.

In reference to the number of closed rules that we have had this year, let me just remind the good gentleman that 15 out of the 23 closed rules were actually the Congressional Review Act, the CRAs that we have been working on. They are prescribed to be a closed rule. That is the nature of a CRA.

So I would think that, in the good gentleman's estimation of this bill and all the negative things that could potentially come of it, that we should be able to come to some bipartisan agreement on this, especially considering the political climate that we are in today, the occupant of the White House today, certainly in Republican hands, and I would think our friends on the Democratic side of the aisle would be very interested in ensuring an unbiased source of information that comes from the SAB to give to the EPA in making their important decisions. This, I would think, would be a good idea for both sides of the aisle, no matter who is in the White House, and I would agree that it is.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Weber), my good friend.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

As we get back to the bill at hand, I think it is important that there are a lot of important topics out there that people want to touch on, and that is all well and good. Just like my friend from Texas, a fine member of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, brought up other bills that are important and that relate to what we are talking about here today, and I think that is important as well.

But I think I see an underlying theme here. We all agree on one thing: we want the EPA to use science. We want public participation. We want and we need transparency.

This is certainly a positive step in a bill, Mr. Speaker, that went through regular order, that was introduced with bipartisan support, that went through the markup process, and that was reported out without amendments, something that this body in the last Congress passed, I believe, in a bipartisan fashion.

Just to underscore the importance of taking this important step--and let me underscore again--no matter which side of the aisle you are on, it is important that we do this because of who you may think is the right person or the wrong person occupying the White House, it is important that the EPA has an unbiased source of information in order for it to make its decisions.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a news release from the American Chemistry Council.

[From the American Chemistry Council, March 9, 2017]

ACC Supports Legislative Efforts To Improve EPA Science

Washington.--The American Chemistry Council (ACC) issued

the following statement in support of the H.R. 1430, the

``Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act of 2017'' (or

The HONEST Act) introduced by Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) and

H.R. 1431 ``EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2017,''

introduced by Congressman Frank Lucus (R-OK).

``Consistency and transparency are key to the regulatory

certainty our industry needs to grow and create jobs. In some

instances, EPA has fallen short of employing the highest-

quality, best-available science in their regulatory decision

making.

``It is critical that the regulated community and the

public have confidence that decisions reached by EPA are

grounded in transparent and reproducible science. By ensuring

that the EPA utilizes high quality science and shares

underlying data used to reach decisions, the HONEST Act can

help foster a regulatory environment that will allow the U.S.

business of chemistry to continue to develop safe, innovative

products that Americans depend on in their everyday lives.

``The Science Advisory Board Reform Act would improve the

peer review process--a critical component of the scientific

process used by EPA in their regulatory decisions about

potential risks to human health or the environment. The Act

would make peer reviewers accountable for responding to

public comment, strengthen policies to address conflicts of

interest, ensure engagement of a wide range of perspectives

of qualified scientific experts in EPA's scientific peer

review panels and increase transparency in peer review

reports.

``We commend Chairman Smith and Congressman Lucas for their

leadership and commitment to advance these important

issues.''

Mr. Speaker, I would like to read an excerpt from the American Chemistry Council letter:

``The Science Advisory Board Reform Act would improve the peer review process--a critical component of the scientific process used by EPA in their regulatory decisions about potential risks to human health or the environment. The Act would make peer reviewers accountable for responding to public comment, strengthen policies to address conflicts of interest, ensure engagement of a wide range of perspectives of qualified scientific experts in EPA's scientific peer review panels and increase transparency in peer review reports.''

That is a strong statement.

I also include in the Record a letter from the American Farm Bureau Federation.

American Farm

Bureau Federation,

Washington, DC, March 8, 2017.

Hon. Lamar Smith,

Chair, House Committee on Science, Space and Technology,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Eddie Bernice Johnson,

Ranking Member, House Committee on Science, Space and

Technology, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Johnson: Later this

week, the House

Science, Space and Technology Committee will consider

legislation to provide for Scientific Advisory Board (SAB)

member qualifications and public participation. The American

Farm Bureau strongly supports this legislation and pledges

our commitment to work with the committee in pressing for its

swift consideration.

This legislation is a priority because it reforms the SAB

process by strengthening public participation, improving the

process of selecting expert advisors, and expanding the

overall transparency of the SAB. While the SAB should be a

critical part of the scientific foundation of the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) regulatory process,

EPA has systematically used its authority to silence

dissenting scientific experts. Rather than promote fairness,

transparency and independence to ensure unbiased scientific

advice, EPA routinely has ignored its own Peer Review

Handbook and silenced dissenting voices on expert panels.

This legislation seeks to reinforce the SAB process as a

tool that can help policymakers with complex issues while

preventing EPA from muzzling impartial scientific advice.

This legislation deserves strong, bipartisan support. We

applaud your leadership in this effort and will work with you

to ensure passage.

Sincerely,

Zippy Duvall,

President.

Mr. Speaker, the American Farm Bureau Federation states:

``This legislation seeks to reinforce the SAB process as a tool that can help policymakers with complex issues while preventing EPA from muzzling impartial scientific advice. This legislation deserves strong, bipartisan support. We applaud your leadership in this effort and will work with you to ensure passage.''

These are two bipartisan groups looking out for the best interests of the citizens of our great country, so I think they make strong statements in support of this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

I think we have run to the end of our speakers.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

This bill is a good idea, and I think the debate that we have had here today underscores the importance of this as we consider this under the rule.

H.R. 1431 addresses problems that have arisen over the years with the Science Advisory Board, and actually would return the Board to its intended purpose--something maybe the gentleman does not agree with--to provide independent expert advice on scientific and technical information.

By modernizing the policies and the procedures of the governing of the SAB, Congress, with this bill, can take

critical steps to make sure that the SAB is best equipped to provide that independent, transparent, balanced review and the analyses of the science used that guides the EPA's regulatory decisions.

One key issue that this measure would address is the importance of having regulations that are supported by science and that are reproducible and accessible for peer review, not antiscience, like some people have said. Quite the opposite. We want science. We want good science.

The scientific method demands that the result of scientific studies be capable of replication. This is all the more critical when the information is used to develop and set public policy, which is why the methods and the data used by the EPA and the SAB must be publicly available for purposes of replication and verification. If you don't want public transparency, I guess you should vote ``no'' on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, opponents of the legislation have argued that it makes unnecessary and unproductive changes to the SAB, that it would restrict the ability of scientists to engage on the issues they specialize in, creates new burdens through the public comment and transparency provisions, and weakens the ability of the EPA to use the best available science and data to support its rules and regulations.

I believe that these arguments fail to recognize what this bill actually does accomplish. They seem to ignore the importance of reforming the Federal rulemaking process in a way that ensures sound science is the bedrock on which Federal rules and regulations are built--sound science; is that a radical idea--and that these are not predetermined political agendas.

Unfortunately, the EPA has diluted the Board's credibility by systematically silencing dissenting opinions, ignoring calls for balanced participation, and preventing the Board from responding to congressional reports. Fully 10 percent of the seats on the Board will be filled by State, local, and tribal representatives, improving the balance of that participation.

H.R. 1431 simply encourages greater transparency, debate, and public participation in the Board, which will result in better decisionmaking at the EPA. I think that is something everyone should be able to agree on. I don't think public participation is a burden, but, rather, a benefit that improves the relationship and the interaction between Federal regulators and the public.

By strengthening public participation, improving the process for selecting expert advisers, and expanding transparency requirements, this legislation takes critical steps that will improve our regulatory system, while also ensuring that the most qualified and the most capable scientists are free to undertake a balanced and open review of regulatory science.

Mr. Speaker, it is time to update the law. It is time to restore independence to the Science Advisory Board. It is time to strengthen scientific integrity. Science is an invaluable tool that helps policymakers navigate complex issues, yet this resource has been severely diminished if the EPA interferes with expert advice, limits public participation, and fails to disclose potential conflicts of interest.

As President Reagan said in guidance to the EPA: ``The purpose of the Science Advisory Board is to apply the universally accepted principles of scientific peer review to the research conclusions that will form the basis for EPA regulations, a function that must remain above interest group politics.''

Mr. Speaker, I believe H.R. 1431 gets to the heart of President Reagan's point. Greater debate, unbiased scientific advice and independent peer-reviews, and public participation will only result in better decisionmaking at the Federal level. I believe that this is the goal we all share, and I urge all of my colleagues to support this rule, as well as the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 229 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my friend from Colorado (Mr. Polis), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I hold in my hand House Resolution 229. You heard the Clerk read it moments ago. Page 1 and page 2. Folks can find it on rules.house.gov if they haven't had a chance to see it already. It provides a closed rule for consideration of H.R. 1430, Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act of 2017.

If you work through that title, Mr. Speaker, the Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act, you will find that ``honest'' is what those letters spell out. It is the HONEST Act.

In the past, the Rules Committee has reported structured rules for consideration of this very bill. In this case, Mr. Speaker, there were no amendments offered in committee. There were no amendments presented in the Rules Committee last night. We have reported a closed rule for consideration of this bill.

Science is, Mr. Speaker, in the EPA's own words, the backbone of EPA's decisionmaking. President Obama, in 2011, issued an executive order about how agencies should go about making the regulatory process more effective. He said, and I quote: ``Each agency shall ensure the objectivity of any scientific and technological information and processes used to support the agency's regulatory actions.''

We talk so much about what divides us in this institution, in this town, sometimes even in this country, Mr. Speaker, I think that point is worth dwelling on.

Again, quoting from former President Barack Obama: ``Each agency shall ensure the objectivity of any scientific and technological information and processes used to support the agency's regulatory actions.''

It is what the HONEST Act aims to do, Mr. Speaker. It aims to provide the American public with the data that the EPA uses in each of its regulatory actions.

It would come as a surprise to many Americans, Mr. Speaker, to learn that there are Agency actions that take place based entirely on undisclosed data sets, that the regulatory arm of government can be at work based on secret data that will never be released to the American public to verify, to confirm in this what is often, in scientific communities, referred to as peer-reviewed literature.

We believe that, if we are making the rules, we should be able to expose the data on which those rules are based to scrutiny and, in fact, to challenge, Mr. Speaker.

One thing I have learned in this job is sometimes I am not as smart as I think I am. I don't know if that has ever happened to you, Mr. Speaker. I am sure it has never happened to my friend from Colorado. But sometimes we are not as smart as we think we are. Sometimes being challenged makes us better.

The HONEST Act, Mr. Speaker, aims to provide the opportunity simply by looking at the data for any American citizen to understand the regulatory actions being taken at the EPA, and, yes, if necessary, to challenge those actions if they believe they are not based on sound science.

Mr. Speaker, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: Is this bill necessary? The EPA's mission is to protect the environment and public health, so, of course, it is going to use the best science.

The answer should be yes. The answer should be yes that in every set of circumstances we are always using the very best data. But as you know, time and time again, you can bring an expert into your office. A scientist on one side of the issue will tell you one thing; a scientist on the other will bring an equally compelling compendium of information to tell you the next. It is left to us, to the American people, to decide who is right and who is wrong.

This is nothing to be feared. This is something to be embraced. It has certainly been a characteristic of our great country for over 200 years.

But in these days of information pouring out of the administration at the speed of the internet, it is more critical than ever that we make that information available to the public. With the ability today to understand that information, to process that information, to compile that information, to inspect that information in details never before imagined, it is incumbent upon us to make sure that America has that opportunity.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I would encourage my colleagues to support this rule to bring the bill to the floor and then to support the underlying legislation so that we can pass the HONEST Act, bringing clarity and transparency to the EPA rulemaking process.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, you know that I consider the gentleman from Colorado to be a good friend of mine. I find myself, after that presentation, though, wondering if that was a cloud of smog over Denver or if it was another cloud of smoke over Denver in these days.

That is just not true. It is just not true. I will start with what I am proud about because I think we do focus too often on divisions.

Mr. Speaker, you know that we wanted to hold the Obama administration accountable for sound science. And now that there is a Republican in the White House, we want to hold a Republican administration accountable for sound science.

So often in this town, we see one set of rules when you agree with the person in office and another set of rules when you disagree with the person in office. I don't think that is the right way to govern a country. I am proud that we are not falling into that trap. If it is good for the Obama administration, it is good for the Trump administration.

Number two, there is no smoke-filled backroom deal here. Number one, there is no smoke-filled room anywhere on Capitol Hill. Speaker Boehner is gone, and smoking is banned from all of our spaces. This bill went through a full committee hearing, the full committee process. So often, Mr. Speaker, you know at the beginning of a year like this one, we are trying to move legislation to the floor quickly. Some things that we have already had hearings and debate on, like this bill, from last Congress, we bring to the floor outside of regular order, and we skip the committee hearing process. Not so with this bill. It went through the Science, Space, and Technology Committee for a full hearing.

Mr. Speaker, we talk about transparency as if it exists at the EPA. I will remind my friend from Colorado, Mr. Speaker, we have to issue subpoenas from the United States Congress to get the EPA to share its data with us, notwithstanding to get them to share it with the University of Georgia or Georgia Tech or Caltech, or wherever the best scientific minds of the day are. We have to issue subpoenas to get them to share that information. Clearly, transparency is not the norm, it is the exception.

We talk about costs. My friend references $1 billion in costs from some study, apparently, not a peer-review study. I have not seen the data backing up this study. But the good news is I don't actually need the study. I have the bill itself, Mr. Speaker, and I will turn to the relevant part here. Paragraph 5, clarify that the administrator shall implement this section in a matter that does not exceed $1 million per year from the amounts otherwise authorized to be appropriated. Now, you don't have to spend the entire million dollars, Mr. Speaker, but in the name of transparency, to make sure that folks have access to the data, we have said it is worth investing resources but not to exceed $1 million.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, we talk about the burden of red tape. I don't know if you have had to deal with the EPA or the DOT or the DOD or the DOE--insert DO acronym here--red tape is abundant in this Federal Government, and asking the Federal Government to be transparent is the antithesis of red tape. Since when did it become a burden on the institutions of government to be transparent with the American people? Since when, when you are making rules and regulations that affect the lives of every single American, did it become a burden to share the data on which those regulations are based?

I will say to you, Mr. Speaker, we get wrapped around the axle so often here that we end up getting further and further from our goals. Sharing data, getting peer-reviewed comments on that data, and having folks come out in support of the conclusions reached on that data are going to make us stronger as a nation not weaker. If you are proud of your underlying data, you should be proud to share that data. If you are embarrassed of your underlying data, I understand why you might want to keep it a secret.

We have an opportunity not to hide from science but to embrace science, we have an opportunity not to reach political conclusions but scientific conclusions, and we have an opportunity to restore the American people's trust in the institutions of government that are issuing these regulations. This is a small step in the right direction with the HONEST Act, Mr. Speaker, but it is an important step in the right direction. I hope my colleagues will support it.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert).

Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I would say to the gentleman, as he may know, the language is different in this section.

When the CBO scored the bill last year, they presumed that the EPA would have the obligation of compiling all the data and making it all public themselves. In this bill, it presumes the EPA will only make use of publicly available data. I would refer the gentleman to the committee report.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I often wonder what it is like to be in your position there, a distinguished career as a judge, and you come down here to talk about the EPA and whether or not the rules and regulations should be based on sound science or not, and you end up with a discussion over the Russians. There is no objection that can be lodged here for going outside of the scope of the bill.

I can always tell, when I come down for Rules Committee debate, whether or not we are really talking about something that divides us or whether we are just talking. If we are talking about something that divides us, we spend every moment of the hours that we have debating the nitty-gritty of the issue before us--talking about how quickly should that data be disclosed; how many folks should have access to it. Are there going to be episodes where the data needs to be kept super secret and folks can't be trusted with it? What should we do about new and emerging business practices, propriety technologies? How do we deal with those questions?

I enjoy those rules, Mr. Speaker, because we are doing exactly what we came here to do, and that is to delve into the details and get it right for the American people.

What I am led to believe on a day like today is that we are pretty close to getting it right for the American people because we are not talking about the nitty-gritty of the legislation. We are talking about the Clean Power Plan that the past administration put forward. We are not talking about the details of the legislation; we are talking about the Russians today. I think that is because there aren't many things much more common sense than sharing with the American people that data on which the laws of the land are made.

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that the EPA is involved in a complicated line of work, a critically important line of work.

I can't find a single constituent in the great State of Georgia that doesn't believe in clean water and clean air. I can find a whole lot of them who think that they believe more in clean water and clean air than does any institution in Washington, D.C. I promise you, no one cares more about the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area than those of us who live along the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area.

Nobody cares more about protecting the Earth in the great State of Georgia than those farmers who are creating the largest export we have in the great State of Georgia, which are our agriculture products.

We are in this together, which is why, when this bill came before the House last Congress, it passed with a bipartisan vote. These are commonsense ideas that bring us together more than they divide us.

Mr. Speaker, I think the real surprise is that folks believe the EPA to be transparent, and learn that it is not. Folks would not believe that this Congress has to subpoena information in order to get its hands on it.

What this bill would say is not only should Congress be able to access the information, but any reputable scientist should be able to access the information.

What my friend says about privacy concerns, they are a shared concern in this institution. There is absolutely nothing in this underlying legislation that threatens those privacy concerns. In fact, it requires that all private information be redacted before the information be utilized.

Concerns over cost, again, are absolutely important, but I will read from the committee report: ``This bill does not contain any new budget authority, spending authority, credit authority, or an increase or decrease in revenues or tax expenditures.''

That it is a pretty simple bill and a pretty simple rule. It asks that we lift the curtain of secrecy around the regulations that protect our health and safety. It asks that we make health and safety issues not things that divide us around process, but things that unite us around results.

Candidly, I came to this institution to achieve those results, Mr. Speaker, and I am proud to be carrying this rule to the floor today. I encourage all of my colleagues to please support this bill, and with its passage we can get to the underlying legislation, end the shroud of secrecy, and restore public confidence in the laws that protect all of our health and safety.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.