Making EPA Great Again

Sound science should be at the core of the EPA's mission. Legitimate science should underlie all actions at the Agency, from research to regulations, and be an integral part of justifying their actions. Unfortunately, over the last eight years, the EPA has pursued a political agenda, not a scientific one. Time and again, the EPA under the Obama Administration proposed regulations that would have no significant impact on the environment. The Clean Power Plan, proposed by the EPA last June, set impossible targets for carbon emissions. Yet even EPA data shows that this regulation would only eliminate a miniscule amount of global carbon emissions and would reduce sea level rise by only 1/100 of an inch. The EPA has proposed some of the most expensive, expansive, and ineffective regulations in history. The rules proposed and finalized by the EPA placed heavy burdens on American families. Often, huge costs were shouldered by the taxpayer with little to show for it. And the EPA routinely relied on questionable science based on nonpublic information that could not be reproduced, a basic requirement of the scientific method. Americans deserve to see the science for themselves. If the EPA had nothing to hide, why didn't it make the scientific data it used for its regulations publicly available? What was the EPA hiding? With the transition to a new Administration, there is now an opportunity to right the ship at the EPA and steer the Agency in the right direction.