Ep. 40: Pruitt's Transparency Problem (and it's not his ethics scandals)

From its inception, science has been at the core of the EPA's mission. It's used science about the health effects of industrial pollution to make our air and water cleaner. But EPA administrator Scott Pruitt wants to limit what kinds of research the agency can use when making regulations. To that end, he has introduced the Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science rule. Transparency--sounds pretty good, right? But with this new rule, the agency would limit what kinds of research it can use when making regulations. EPA scientists would no longer be allowed to use studies that don't make their raw data available to the public. That includes most public health studies because these often use confidential patient information that is generally shielded from public view.

On top of that, the rule would exempt certain types of industry-funded science. This has many scientists furious. Nearly 1,000 of them signed a letter calling the proposal a way to run "political interference in science-based decision making."

To learn more about this issue, we turned to someone who ran a big science program at the EPA. Bernard Goldstein was assistant administrator for research and development at the agency during the Reagan administration. He's now a professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health.