Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1430) to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from proposing, finalizing, or disseminating regulations or assessments based upon science that is not transparent or reproducible.

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.

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.

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

I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 1430, the so-called HONEST Act. This is the third time the majority has tried to move this misguided legislation, which was formerly known as the Secret Science Reform Act.

Unfortunately, in this case, the third time is not the charm. The Secret Science bills that the Republicans tried to enact over the previous two Congresses were insidious bills designed, from the outset, to prevent the EPA from using the best available science to meet its obligations under the law. Those bills were constructed to hamstring the ability of the EPA to do just about anything to protect the American public.

As the American Lung Association said at the time: ``The legislation will not improve EPA's actions; rather, it will stifle public health protections.''

The HONEST Act, if anything, is even worse than those two previous bills. There are several reasons for this. Like the prior Secret Science bills, the HONEST Act requires the EPA to release the underlying data from any science that is relied upon when taking action. This would cause a host of cascading problems for the Agency, which is, of course, the real reason they are pushing this bill.

First, the EPA relies upon science drawn from many sources. Since EPA does not own or control the data for most of these scientific sources, the EPA would have no authority to order the public release of such data. This would preclude the EPA from using the vast majority of peer- reviewed science in existence today.

Second, under the HONEST Act, scientific studies relied upon by the EPA must be reproducible from the data that is publicly released. However, the EPA frequently investigates and relies upon scientific studies that are inherently not reproducible.

For instance, the EPA might study natural or manmade environmental disasters, such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, to better understand the effects on the environment and to improve disaster response. Under this bill, the EPA couldn't use this type of information at all.

These problems with the legislation were apparently not enough for my Republican colleagues. They have worked hard to make the bill even worse this Congress. The newest addition to the bill would permit the EPA to redact from public disclosure confidential information, such as trade secrets and public health information. However, the bill then sets up an unrestricted process whereby anyone who signs a confidentiality agreement can access any restricted information in the EPA's possession.

This provision is a Pandora's box, which could have untold consequences for the EPA, industry, and the general public. First, the EPA will find it much more difficult to collect scientific data in the first instance if people think it will be disclosed at will. This will cripple the EPA's ability to conduct their own science, which is important since the rest of the HONEST Act essentially places all non- EPA science off limits.

This provision is also in direct conflict with any number of other Federal laws, like the Freedom of Information Act, and HIPAA. The bill provides no guidance to the Agency on how to navigate the minefield it creates, which will surely lead to a morass of lawsuits and legal bills for the EPA.

Finally, this provision places no restrictions on who can access restricted information. For instance, could a chemical manufacturer obtain access to the trade secrets of a competitor simply by signing a confidentiality agreement? Could insurance companies seek the health information of potential customers?

The potential for abuses with this provision are endless.

In a day and age when the most valuable commodity on the black market is personal information and trade secrets, it is unconscionable that we are providing an easily accessible source for criminals around the world.

Finally, the HONEST Act also foists upon the EPA a massive unfunded mandate. While we have no CBO cost estimate for this bill, prior versions were estimated to cost the EPA $250 million per year. However, the bill restricts the EPA to spending only $1 million to implement its provisions. In essence, this hits the EPA with a $249 million unfunded mandate every year.

If that were not bad enough, this bill comes in the face of massive proposed budget cuts to the EPA's science program by the Trump administration.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans claim that this bill is just implementing scientific's best practices. It is odd, then, that a host of scientific societies and science stakeholder groups have expressed their opposition to this legislation. This includes the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association of Public and Land- grant Universities, the Association of American Universities; and the American Chemical Society.

If Republicans don't want to be labeled as flat-Earth science haters, I think they would want to listen to what scientists say instead of lecturing them about things they don't understand.

In reality, this bill isn't about science. It is about undermining public health and the environment. That is why a host of public health and environmental groups are actively opposing the bill. This includes, among others, the American Lung Association, the American Thoracic Society, the American Public Health Association, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the Environmental Defense Fund.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record some of the letters I received in opposition.

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., FACP,

President & CEO, Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.

Paul Bogart,

Executive Director, Health Care Without Harm.

Richard Allen Williams, MD,

117th President, National Medical Association.

Jeff Carter, JD,

Executive Director, Physicians for Social Responsibility.

Mr. Speaker, for the many reasons I have spoken about today, I strongly oppose this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Beyer), the vice ranking member of the full committee and ranking member of the Science, Space, and Technology's Subcommittee on Oversight.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. Esty).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter).

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

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

Mr. Speaker, since the time that President Nixon signed into law authorizing the EPA, it appears to me that there has been no evidence that they have done anything other than attempt to protect the lives of the American people. I don't believe that this legislation is going to do anything to further that.

It will give them a lot of unfunded mandates, far more than what they would ever be funded to carry out. I would ask everyone to respect the Agency and vote ``no'' on the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 229, I call up the bill (H.R. 1430) to prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from proposing, finalizing, or disseminating regulations or assessments based upon science that is not transparent or reproducible, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. 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. 1430.

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

Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1430, the Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act of 2017, or HONEST Act, requires the Environmental Protection Agency to base its regulations on science that is publicly available.

Why would anyone want to hide this information from the American people?

I thank former Science Committee member and former Environment Subcommittee Chairman David Schweikert for his longtime commitment to this issue, and for sponsoring the Secret Science Reform Act in the 113th Congress. In the last Congress, a similar bill passed the House with bipartisan support. Our goal is to help advance not just any science, but the best science.

The HONEST Act is a nonpartisan bill: a change in administration does not affect the public's right to know and see the science behind the EPA's regulations.

This legislation ensures that sound science is the basis for EPA decisions and regulatory actions. The days of ``trust-me science'' are over. In our modern Information Age, Federal regulations should be based only upon data that is available for every American to see, and that can be subjected to independent review. That is called the scientific method.

We can all agree that the government should rely on the best available science. Unfortunately, the government does not always hold to this standard. Looking at the EPA's past record, it is clear that the Agency has not followed an open and honest process. For example, many major air-quality regulations from the previous administration were justified by data that the EPA said they had not seen, even though they proposed the regulation.

This means that the EPA's claims about the cost and benefits of its regulations and the real risk they are meant to address cannot be independently verified by unbiased experts. If the EPA's mandates really are based on sound science, then the American people should be allowed to see the data. The EPA's past refusal to cooperate, leads to the question: What have they been hiding?

Americans have a right to be suspicious.

Mr. Speaker, we all care about the environment, but if policies are not based on legitimate science, regulations will result in economic hardship with little or no environmental benefits. In other words, the regulations would be all pain and no gain.

This bill strengthens the previous House-passed legislation of the last Congress, the Secret Science Reform Act. That bill also required the EPA to base its decisions on information fully available to scientists and the American people.

You may hear from opponents of this legislation that it costs too much money. That is based on a CBO estimate from 2 years ago that misinterprets the implementation requirements of the bill. CBO has not reissued that misinterpretation this year after consulting with the

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to alleviate the ranking member's unfounded concerns and remind her that the National Academy of Sciences itself has explained that transparency in science is possible without any risk to confidentiality or privacy.

This is what the National Academy of Sciences said: ``Nothing in the past suggests that increasing access to research data without damage to privacy and confidentiality rights is beyond scientific reach.''

So I hope that will alleviate her concerns. Really, it comes down to whether you are for an open and honest government or not. That is what this bill is all about.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Babin), who is the chairman of the Space Subcommittee of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Babin).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Banks), who is the vice chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology's Subcommittee on Environment.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I don't see how we can make it more clear to anybody who brings up the privacy arguments. If they go to lines 17 through 21 of page 2 of the bill, it states:

`` . . . any personally identifiable information, trade secrets, or commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confidential, shall be redacted prior to public availability.''

Any misconstruing of that is unfortunate, and it is not an accurate description of that provision.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. LaHood), who is also the chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology's Subcommittee on Oversight.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, it is hard to keep up with all the misstatements about this bill, but I am going to try. The immediate past speaker on the other side talked about the cost of the bill; and I am sure he didn't do it intentionally, but he was using a 2-year-out-of-date cost.

We have an email from the CBO as of this past Monday that says the CBO estimates this legislation would not affect direct spending or revenues, so there is no cost, despite what Members might hear otherwise.

Also, it is just hard for me to understand how any Member of Congress

could oppose open and honest government. All this bill does is to say that the data has to be transparent, the data has to be publicly available.

If they want more government control, more environmental regulations that can't be justified, that is one thing; but don't oppose the bill for the wrong reasons. The bill does nothing more than require open, transparent, and honest government.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gosar), who is a member of the Natural Resources Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a couple of times today that the bill prevents the EPA from using the best available science.

I hope that Members who are listening to this debate, and others, will take the time to actually look at the language of the bill. Here is the exact language, page 2, line 13. The first requirement of the bill is that the EPA ``use the best available science.'' I don't know what more we can do and how better we can spell it out.

The bill is only a little over three pages long. I really do recommend that the folks who oppose it read the bill itself and actually look at the language and the usual understanding and definition of the words, and I hope they will be satisfied.

We have also heard that the scientific community opposes the bill, but let me quote from a couple of Obama administration officials. Dr. John Holdren, the President's science adviser, said that: ``Absolutely, the data on which regulatory decisions are based should be made available to the committee and should be made public.''

The same was said by the chair of the EPA's Science Advisory Board. This is the EPA's Science Advisory Board. They testified before the committee that literature and data used by the EPA be made available to the public.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Marshall), who is the vice chairman of the Oversight Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I know the gentleman from Colorado attended the hearing we had this morning on the scientific method and climate change, but I am not sure he was listening, because not a single witness on either side denied the facts around climate change.

I also want to reassure him--he is worried about Colorado, and I understand that--that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that there was low confidence in any connection between climate change and extreme weather events. So I hope there will not be any unusual extreme weather events in Colorado.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. LaMalfa), a member of the Natural Resources Committee and the Agriculture Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Biggs), who is the chairman of the Environment Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, how much time remains on each side? And I would like to know if the other side, the minority, has any more speakers.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Graves).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Schweikert), a former member of the Science Committee, who is still missed, a former chairman of the Environment Subcommittee, and the author of a very similar bill to this in a previous Congress.

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

Mr. Speaker, costly environmental regulations should only be based upon data that is available to independent scientists and the public and that can be verified.

H.R. 1430, the HONEST Act, gives independent scientists an opportunity to validate the studies the EPA uses to make new regulations. What this bill does not do is roll back the laws that protect the air we breathe and the water we drink. It simply requires the EPA to base regulations on science that is publicly available.

This is a nonpartisan bill. A change in administration does not change the need or justification for it. This is the same bill, virtually, introduced in the last administration, and that is evidenced by my introduction of this good-government legislation with my Democratic colleague Henry Cuellar. That shows it is a good, bipartisan bill.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and promote a more open and honest Federal Government. We should not be afraid of letting the American people see the data that the EPA or other agencies say justifies their regulations.

So let's vote for an open and honest government and support this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to the so- called HONEST Act. Whether in its incarnation last Congress as the Secret Science Act or in this year's incarnation as the HONEST Act, let us be clear, this Orwellian-named bill is clearly designed to suppress certain scientific research that has been the foundation for essential health and environmental regulations.

In addition to hindering scientific advancement, this bill risks violating people's privacy by exposing sensitive patient data, and it is harmful to public health.

The clear aim of the HONEST Act is to undermine EPA's efforts to take action in a variety of areas, such as climate and air pollution.

Let me also be clear, in my State of Connecticut, we rely on those regulations to deal with the asthma crisis we have based on power plants in other parts of the country blowing polluted air into my State.

The so-called HONEST Act accomplishes this objective by excluding legitimate, peer-reviewed research from the policy process. If this bill were to become law, EPA would have no choice but to lean increasingly on industry-funded studies instead.

At my recent townhall meeting in Waterbury, Connecticut, one American after another stood up and expressed their fear and outrage at the attempts made in this House and by the new administration to take science out of public policy.

My constituents want genuine scientific research guiding our efforts to protect our environment and safeguard public health. They don't want agenda-driven studies funded by fossil fuel companies determining the EPA's actions on climate policy.

While the majority attempted to alleviate some of our privacy concerns with this bill, the reality is that any person whom EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt deems worthy will have access to sensitive patient information.

Why is this a problem?

Because fewer people will be willing to participate in the studies that are necessary to understand air and water quality issues.

Who can blame them?

No one wants their medical records shared with strangers, or worse, made public.

The result is that the EPA will have to rely on incomplete science to issue lifesaving regulations.

Sadly, Mr. Speaker, this bill is yet another example of the political crusade against science that we are seeing coming from both Congress and the new administration.

We should be confronting the economic and environmental realities of our changing climate. But just yesterday, President Trump issued an executive order that would have us pretend that climate change does not exist.

Only weeks earlier, the EPA Administrator himself said, without evidence, that he disagreed with the scientific consensus that human activity is the primary contributor to global climate change.

In my home State of Connecticut, we are downwind from these power plants that are burning dirty coal. We see elevated rates of asthma, higher rates of cardiopulmonary issues. If this bill is passed, many longitudinal, scientific studies like the ones that establish the link between air pollution and asthma, would be excluded from playing a role in the EPA's actions.

Mr. Speaker, let's allow the EPA to do its job. I urge my colleagues to oppose this misguided bill.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record two letters in opposition from the Union of Concerned Scientists and from the Environmental Defense Fund.

Union of Concerned Scientists,

March 9, 2017.

Dear Representative: The Union of Concerned Scientists,

with 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country,

strongly opposes H.R. 1430, the misleadingly named Honest and

Open New EPA Science Treatment Act (HONEST Act) of 2017. The

proposal shows that supporters of this legislation have a

fundamental misunderstanding of the process by which science

operates and is ultimately a solution in search of a problem.

This legislation would require that all raw data, models,

code, and other materials from scientific studies be made

available to the public before a federal agency could use it.

But, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) already is

exhaustingly transparent and the science it relies on to make

decisions is made available to the public.

The true intention of this bill is not to increase

transparency in agency use of science in policymaking, but

rather to handcuff the EPA from ever using critical

information necessary to follow through on statutorily

required rulemaking for popular legislation like the Clean

Air Act and the Clean Water Act. The additional restrictions

imposed by this proposed bill would make it almost impossible

to base public protections on the best available scientific

information. In particular, if enacted, the language appears

to indicate that the EPA would be inhibited by the following

challenges:

The EPA wouldn't be able to use most health studies. It

should be expected that any agency tasked with protecting

public health should be able to use public health data. The

confidentiality of such data is usually protected by

institutional review boards

(IRB) to insure the privacy of the participants; thus, the

data could not be made publicly available as demanded. Since

many EPA rules are health-based standards, this rule would

severely restrict the ability of the agency to base rules on

science.

The EPA wouldn't be able to draw from industry data

sources. The agency would be prevented from using data

provided by industry to the agency. Since information from

industry sources is often not publicly available, to protect

proprietary data from their competitors, a law requiring as

such would prevent the agency from utilizing industry data, a

source of information that often provides otherwise unknown

data to inform EPA rulemaking.

The EPA wouldn't be able to use new and innovative science.

New scientific methods and data may be restricted by

intellectual property protections or industry trade secret

exemptions. This bill doesn't include protections for

intellectual property, and it makes industry trade secrets

available upon request to anyone who signs an agreement. If

researchers and industry knew that sharing their science with

the EPA meant that their intellectual property would be

exposed to the world, they might opt out. This would limit

EPA's ability to rely on the best available science including

novel approaches that may not yet be publicly available.

Long-term and meta-analyses would be unavailable. Many of

the public health and safety issues facing the nation cannot

be measured within a small timeframe. The EPA needs long-term

exposure studies that assess the link between chronic

diseases/mortality and pollutants; or on meta-analyses that

include many different studies and locations to provide a

more robust look at the science. In H.R. 1430, the provision

that studies be conducted ``in a manner that is sufficient

for independent analysis and substantial reproduction of

research'' may prevent use of these vital studies by the EPA,

as it is unclear whether such spatially and temporally

comprehensive studies would be considered ``sufficient for

substantial reproduction.''

The CBO estimates exorbitant costs. The attempt to

implement this law would also make the EPA process much more

costly. For past iterations of this legislation, the CBO has

estimated it may take up to $250 million annually for the EPA

simply to comply, and that doesn't even account for the lost

benefits from delaying the protections themselves. Compounded

with the cuts to EPA's budget that are being proposed, this

would just further prevent the agency from being able to do

its job.

H.R. 1430 makes a token attempt to address some of the

criticisms about privacy concerns for personal medical

information and trade secrets. But in practice, the challenge

of identifying and redacting all protected and privileged

information sets up a series of hurdles and complications

that will deter agencies from using the best scientific

analysis to inform their work.

Small, cosmetic tweaks do not change the fact that this

bill is based on a flawed premise and that the authors of the

legislation do not understand the scientific process.

Furthermore, the burden imposed on the EPA to redact

documents would ultimately place limits on the amount of

actual scientific work the EPA can do. The EPA does not exist

in a world of infinite resources.

When this bill was introduced in the 114th Congress as the

``Secret Science Reform Act,'' it received a veto threat from

the Obama administration, which noted that it would

``interfere'' with the EPA's ability to protect public

health, safety, and the environment. The worry is that now,

with an administration that has shown zero interest in using

science to enact safeguards, this legislation could cripple

the agency.

I strongly urge you to oppose H R. 1430, the so-called

HONEST Act. The only honest thing about this legislation is

that it truly opens the window into the real intentions of

the supporters of the bill, and that is to stop the EPA from

fulfilling its science-based mission to protect public health

and the environment. H.R. 1430 is a wolf in sheep's clothing,

purporting to increase public accessibility to data used in

rulemaking, while actually crippling the EPA's ability to use

the best available scientific and technical information to

protect public health and the environment.

Agencies protecting our public health should be able to use

public health data and attempts to undermine agencies

shouldn't be cloaked in false transparency. This Trojan-horse

transparency bill would inhibit the EPA's ability to carry

out its science-based mission to protect human health and the

environment. It does not deserve your support.

Sincerely,

Andrew A. Rosenberg, Ph.D.,

Director, Center for Science and Democracy, Union of

Concerned Scientists.