Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the House
Committee on Science, Space and Technology, has accused the EPA of cooking the
scientific books to justify oppressive and costly regulations.
The Environmental Protection Agency and other activists have long
used “secret science”—another way of saying fake science or junk science—to
justify job-killing regulations, legislation, and massive tax-dollar
expenditures.
Even as
they lobbied against the
confirmation of their new boss, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt,
15,000 unionized EPA scientists, regulators, policy wonks, and attorneys have
been using unverifiable, unrepeatable “scientific” studies to undermine the
rights of property owners, businesses, and employees. Just ask coal miners or
farmers with ponds on their land just how much they appreciate being
“protected” by the EPA.
On several fronts, the EPA seems to be entering into an uncivil
war with both congressional oversight committees and President Trump’s choice
as EPA administrator. Not since President Reagan faced down the air traffic
controllers union has a new president faced this kind of opposition. However,
by using fake science to justify their onerous regulations, EPA’s rank and file
have gone far beyond what the air traffic controllers tried when they grounded
America’s airlines while striking for higher compensation.
Civil ‘Servants’ Wage
War on Their Employers
“It’s going
to be a blood bath when Pruitt gets in there,” predicted former EPA
administrator Christine Todd Whitman,
who predicted a stand-off between career employees and Pruitt. The EPA’s
civil servants claim to fear for their jobs. Many also objected to the
president’s (temporary) social media “gag order,” an
executive order that kept government employees from using agency social media
accounts to advocate policies in direct conflict with the president’s.
Instead of implementing the president’s agenda, they seem to
believe their own views on global warming and a host of other environmental
issues are the only “true” positions. The president, for his part, is clearly
preparing to take the challenge directly to the EPA’s permanent staff.
This is
shaping into a “two-front war,” as congressional oversight committees are
investigating and challenging EPA civil servants with concerns they are using
manipulated research to justify damaging regulations. Texas Republican Lamar
Smith, chairman of the House Committee on
Science, Space and Technology, has accused the EPA of cooking the
scientific books to justify oppressive and costly regulations.
He cited “secret science”—a kind of questionable science “based on
non-public information,” including scientific claims “that could not be
reproduced” by other scientists—the EPA is using to formulate job-crushing
regulations. This so-called secret science is the technological equivalent of
the “fake news” the mainstream media has come under fire for since President
Trump’s inauguration.
Using fake
science by adjusting findings to deliver specific results appears to be an
international trend. An example is the World Health Organization’s cancer
agency, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), which has come
under industry and congressional scrutiny after delivering claims about
supposed carcinogens such as coffee that
it later had to withdraw. It has also been caught directing scientists to hide or destroy the data they
used to justify their claims about alleged carcinogens.
Led by the
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chairman, Utah Rep. Jason
Chaffetz, Congress is also looking at the funding the United States
provides IARC due to its long record of early “findings” it
must later withdraw when more accurate science disproves them.
Where Do the Lies End?
In using this fake science, the EPA has joined the ranks of the
data-changing climate-change movement. Recall the recent revelations about
those at NOAA and NASA who published unverifiable data, or even data that has
been clearly manipulated. This includes both oceanic- and land-temperature
data, which report writers cherry-picked to achieve a pre-determined yet
factually questionable conclusion: the Earth is warming and the nearly
two-decade pause in that warming was based on faulty data.
Now it
appears the EPA has been doing the same thing with core data it has frequently
hidden from view. For more than a decade, according to John D. Graham,
a current dean at Indiana University and former head of the Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs, the National Science Foundation has
routinely reported on the shoddy science the EPA has used in formulating
regulations. The NSF pointed to the EPA’s studies’ “bad quality, lack of
transparency and lack of reproducibility.”
This
reflects the kind of problems cited by Dr. Louis Cox, a
chief scientist at Nexthealth Technologies who needs sound data to assess
health risks to Americans. Cox recently told Congress he’s alarmed at the state
of the EPA’s scientific accuracy and dependability, testifying to “catastrophic
failure in the reproducibility and trustworthiness of scientific results” at
the EPA.
On their
own, such bogus data manipulation has no immediate or direct impact on the
American public or American business. It might create a falsified foundation
for climate over-regulation, but the fake data alone are more laughable than
concerning. However, in the EPA’s hands, fake science can lead to very real,
business-crushing and job-costing regulations. This is why the House committee
is so justifiably concerned, and Americans should be as well. Smith plans to
re-introduce legislation that
would ban the EPA from creating regulations based on “secret science.”
Americans who are tired of being lectured to by scientists who
fake up data should look into Smith’s legislative initiative, then make up
their own minds about secret science, junk science, and fake science,
especially when it’s used to direct tax expenditures and squelch businesses and
jobs. Americans who are worried about an out-of-control bureaucracy need look
no further than the EPA, where thousands of people paid by our tax dollars are
trying to sabotage the president’s initiatives to create jobs and improve our
competitiveness in the world economy.
Jason Chaffetz’s home state has
been corrected.
Since the
’76 Ford campaign Ned Barnett has been active in managing strategy, tactics,
and media in campaigns for candidates and political issues. Barnett's
forthcoming book is "The Nuts and Bolts of Creating
and Winning A Political Campaign, From Someone Who’s Been There and Done That."
