If you are not familiar with the
EPA “Environmental Protection Agency” of the U.S., it was officially started in
1970 by President Nixon as an agency to provide expert advice to the president
on environmental matters. Since the
birth of the EPA we have hit several milestones in not only our environmental
history but also in protecting the common health of the population. Over the
years with the use of science the EPA has researched and helped protect the
American people from destroying our environment and health by ways of water and
air pollution, pesticides used in farming our foods, cleaning up land waste and
combating and bringing awareness to the silent killer Radon along with a lot
more environmental and health threats. Currently the EPA is conducting scientific
research towards the Clean Air Act, Climate Change, and Production of safer
chemicals, radiological contamination due to homeland security threats and the
mailing of anthrax.
This all sounds like very important
work right? Well Administrator Scott Pruitt who was nominated to the EPA by
President Donald Trump recently moved to pass a rule limiting what science and
research the EPA can use. He is claiming
that the rule is to enable “transparency” in the in the “secret” science used
by EPA making all data available to the public and discrediting past
long-standing landmark studies that are unable to provide this information. The
problem with this is studies such as the harmful effects of air pollution and
pesticide exposure involve confidentiality from physicians on medical history
with proof of the harmful effects. Pruitt feels the science and testing should
be reproducible and that’s another problem. The problem is ethics it is
unethical to expose humans to these dangers in order to reveal the side
effects. The past studies were one on individuals seeking treatment for these
things before we knew they were harmful, that’s how we learn from our past
mistakes. This rule could make decades
of studies unusable. Not cool!
It’s interesting that the word
“transparent” is the one chosen by Pruitt. The man who is under scrutiny by
congress for using America’s credit card for several questionable purchases,
one being a $43,000 soundproofs phone booth. A man making secret phone calls
then questioning the EPA’s “transparency” seems a little hypocritical don’t you
think?
What is the agenda here? I think
money could be a huge possibility considering the EPA’s pull for restrictions on
fossil fuel industries. Trump has
already lifted several restrictions put in place by the Obama administration to
protect our environment. It all sounds
like a bunch of shady business to me. The public's opinion and comments as of April 25th are limited by 30 days before the rule is officially in effect. What do you think?
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