House Passes Gosar Amendment Calling for EPA Transparency, Accountability

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, U.S. Congressman Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. (AZ-04) released the following statement after his amendment to the Secret Science Reform Act of 2014, requiring the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to make all scientific and technical information relied upon for rulemaking available online, successfully passed the House by unanimous consent:

“For far too long, the EPA has used secret studies and so-called peer-reviews from biased sources to justify regulations that fit their job-killing agenda. Not only does this practice result in a lack of transparency, it also leads to hundreds of thousands of jobs being destroyed across the country by unreasonable and unnecessary regulations. Additionally, hardworking taxpayers are left to pick up the tab for these expensive, and often worthless, regulations.

“The best way to reign in this rogue agency is to make them publish the science supporting their regulations online. Furthermore, I strongly support the Secret Science Reform Act of  2014, and I’d like to congratulate my good friend and fellow Arizonan David Schweikert (AZ-06) on passage of this commonsense legislation.”

Background:

The Congressional Budget Office determined that Congressman Gosar’s amendment would not score and would not affect direct spending or revenues. Congressman Gosar’s amendment is supported by the Chairman of the Science, Space and Technology Committee, Congressman Lamar Smith (TX-21).

The Secret Science Reform Act would require the Environmental Protection Agency to utilize actual science when formulating regulations and requires that the science be made available for peer-review and reproduction.

The text of the Gosar amendment can be found HERE.

The Congressional Research Service estimates the Obama Administration has already squandered $77 billion from FY2008 through FY2013 studying and trying to develop global climate change policies. If the EPA is implementing regulations that cost our economy billions of dollars every year, at minimum, the science used to justify these regulations should be based on actual science that is made available online in order to allow independent analysis and reproduction.  

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