The EPA today extended the comment deadline to August 16 on its proposal to restrict the types of science that can be used in EPA decisions after pretty much everyone—from the American Home Builders Association to the American Geophysical Union—complained that a thirty-day comment period was grossly insufficient for a rule with such potential wide-ranging consequences. The EPA also scheduled a public hearing to be held in Washington, DC on July 17.
The EPA’s proposal would prevent the EPA from using many public health studies when making decisions. Scientists now have more time to comment on the potential harm that this proposal would have on public health and the environment.
The move gives scientists the ability to develop more sophisticated comments and ensure that their peers have the opportunity to detail how the rule would impact their own public health research and its use in EPA decisions—and to submit for the record specific studies that could be set aside. It is important for scientists to explain how and why specific communities would be harmed by excluding legitimate, peer-reviewed public health research from consideration by EPA.
In just three short weeks, nearly 100,000 comments were submitted.
From the beginning of the comment period, scientific organizations repeatedly and pointedly repudiated the EPA’s claim that the new rule is consistent with scientific transparency standards. The EPA heard from both industry and the science community that the short comment period on such a vague and badly written rule was wholly inadequate and possibly even in violation of the Clean Air Act and other statutes. Now scientists will have a few more weeks to fully detail the impact that such a fatally flawed rule would have on public health and the environment.
UCS and its partners have produced a guide for scientists and organizations on filing an effective public comment on this rule, and will be encouraging people to provide testimony at the July 17 hearing.