In the midst of the coronavirus epidemic, while people are self isolating and social distancing, and while scientists are busy working overtime trying to find ways to keep Americans safe, EPA has issued a new proposal that will severely harm our health.
EPA has published a supplement to the proposed “transparency in science” rule. They are only allowing comments for 30 days from the publication of the rule, which ends April 17. (Usually comment periods are 60-90 days.) They are not having a virtual public hearing, even though they could do this.
This proposed supplement would increase the scope of the original proposed rule. The original rule received almost 600,000 comments, most of them negative.
The proposed rule says EPA should only base its regulations on science studies that have data online, available to the public. They claim this is for “transparency” in science. But all health studies involve personal information and personal health information that violates privacy when it is put online. This proposed rule would severely limit studies EPA uses when making rules to protect public health, and it would prevent EPA from carrying out its main charge of protecting the health of Americans.
The Union of Concerned Scientists has written a blog about this proposed rule change, and UCS is also holding a virtual hearing on April 14. Please read their blog, and please comment on the EPA proposal, and please consider signing up for the virtual hearing. You don’t have to be a scientist to say you want EPA to fully consider all health studies in order to protect YOUR health.
https://blog.ucsusa.org/michael-halpern/ucs-to-host-virtual-public-hearing-on-epa-science-rule
