Washington D.C. – House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Ranking Member David Vitter (R-La.) today sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Office of Air and Radiation, Assistant Administrator, Gina McCarthy, seeking the science underpinning new air quality rules and criticizing the agency’s lack of transparency and use of secret data.
“EPA has continually refused to make public the basic scientific data underlying virtually all of the Agency’s claimed benefits from new Clean Air Act (CAA) rules. Everyone agrees on the importance of clean air, but EPA needs to release the secret data they use in formulating new rules,” Rep. Smith and Sen. Vitter wrote. “The EPA’s new CAA regulations are expected to be some of the most costly the federal government has ever issued. Relying on secret data to support these rules is not acceptable. The public and outside scientists must be able to independently verify the EPA’s claims, especially when the results are contradicted by so many other studies.”
The letter specifically highlights the lack of transparency behind EPA’s upcoming review of National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone. The lawmakers noted that the EPA’s reliance on “secret data” contradicts the promises of the President to be the “most transparent administration in history.”
The full letter can be found here.