Climate Change Debate Takes New Turn As Questions Arise Over EPA Secret Science

By Brandon Turbeville, Natural Blaze

The political theatre between climate change fanaticism and free market lack of regard for the environment is continuing apace and notably so with a recent move by the EPA Science Advisory Board.

The SAB voted on May 31 to review a series of rules that the EPA under administrator Scott Pruitt, proposed over the past eight months.

These new rules include a plan to limit the use of “secret science” as well as proposals to strike down limits imposed on greenhouse gas emissions.

The former rule change would prevent the EPA from relying on scientific studies that include “non-public data” in formulating its policy. Pruitt is framing the new decision to be based on transparency.

On May 12, the SAB criticized the EPA for not submitting the new rule to the SAB for review.

As Nature reports, “The working group is very much in favor of transparency,” said Alison Cullen, an environmental health researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle and chair of the working group, during the SAB meeting.

But on this particular proposal, there is a “very real lack of clarity” in how the rule would be applied,” she said.

A number of scientists and environmentalists argue that the new EPA rule is counterproductive simply because it limits the agency in what data it can use. They argue that some of the data cannot be made public due to privacy concerns.

Both sides clearly have a point. If the EPA has non-public information pointing toward a certain chemical being toxic, for instance, the EPA should be able to formulate a policy based on the real scientific evidence.

However, given that the issue of alleged climate change has become so politicized, with so many scandals involving the doctoring of studies, research, and entire institutions dedicated to the issue as well as qualifications of the researchers themselves, allowing climate policy to be set in secret amid such stunning levels of academic and scientific fraud could present a number of dangers.

In the end, however, as Nature reports,

The advisers did what they were supposed to do, said board member Steven Hamburg, chief scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group based in New York City. “The SAB is a congressionally chartered organization,” he said. “Any administration can reject our advice, but we are part of the record.”

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Brandon Turbeville – article archive here – is an author out of Florence, South Carolina. He is the author of six books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies,Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2, The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria,and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Turbeville has published over 1,000 articles dealing on a wide variety of subjects including health, economics, government corruption, and civil liberties. Brandon Turbeville’s podcast Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV. He is available for radio and TV interviews. Please contact activistpost (at) gmail.com.