EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I would like to thank Chairman Smith and former Environment Subcommittee Chairs Harris, Stewart, and Schweikert for their hard work on this important piece of legislation. I also want to thank my friend Representative Peterson for making this bill a bipartisan effort. I appreciate his willingness to sponsor this bill with me.

This is a good government bill. It reflects the values we should uphold, regardless of which side of the political aisle we are on.

In western Oklahoma, we are no strangers to regulatory overreach from the Environmental Protection Agency. Farmers, ranchers, and small businesses often find themselves the target of burdensome and simply inefficient regulations.

These regulations range from something as specific as farm fuel tank requirements to vastly prohibitive restrictions on electric power plants that power our homes.

Government intrusion into America's energy and agricultural sectors reverberate into our everyday lives in the form of higher food prices or higher monthly energy bills. Stagnant wages and underemployment have only exacerbated the problem for families trying to make ends meet.

The science behind EPA regulations is as important as the money they siphon from our economy. Science and data are invaluable tools in helping us navigate complex policy issues, and when the economic cost of these regulations reaches into tens of millions of dollars, we need to get it right.

H.R. 1029, the EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act, ensures that the best experts are free to undertake a balanced and open review of regulatory science.

The Board was established to provide scientific advice to the EPA, to Congress, and to review the quality and relevance of the science that EPA uses for regulations, but in recent years, shortcomings from the process, unfortunately, have arisen.

Opportunities for public participation are limited, an imbalance of viewpoints has been allowed to grow, potential conflicts of interest have gone unchecked, and the ability of the Board to speak independently seemingly has been curtailed. If the EPA undermines the Board's independence or prevents it from providing advice to Congress, the valuable advice these experts can provide is wasted.

Despite the existing requirement that EPA's advisory panels be ``fairly balanced in terms of point of view represented,'' the Science Committee has identified a number of problems that we fear undermine the panel's credibility and work product.

These include:

A number of advisory members have received money from the EPA. This could create an appearance of a conflict of interest.

Some of the panelists have taken public and even political positions on issues they are advising the Board about. For example, a lead reviewer of the EPA's hydraulic fracturing study published an antifracking article entitled: ``Regulate, Baby, Regulate.'' Now, clearly, this is not an objective point of view and should be publicly disclosed.

Public participation is limited during most Board meetings; interested parties have almost no ability to comment on the scope of the work, and meeting records are often incomplete and hard to obtain.

The EPA routinely excludes State, local, and tribal experts while stacking the review panels with individuals who will give the EPA the answer it wants.

This bill is both proscience and pro-sound science. This bill is founded upon recommendations for reform outlined in the National Academy of Sciences and the EPA's Peer Review Handbook. This bill ensures that the Board is balanced, transparent, and independent, all of which will help prevent the SAB from being manipulated by any group.

H.R. 1029 liberates the Board from EPA--some would say tyranny, but I would prefer to think it empowers the Board to listen to outside expertise. This viewpoint is consistent with the basic ideals of our democracy.

Subject areas such as risk and hazardous assessments often involve the examination and evaluation of some of the most complicated scientific and technical information. These assessments are precisely where the Board's expertise is most needed. The decision to review remains in the hands of the Board, and the EPA must respect the independence of the Board's opportunity to review.

Perhaps, most importantly, this bill seeks to increase public participation that benefits all stakeholders. Currently, valuable opportunities for diverse perspectives are limited. The Federal Government does not have a monopoly on the truth.

The public has important expertise that we can't afford to ignore in a democracy. State, local, tribal, and private sectors have a long history of qualified scientific experts. Their contributions should be taken seriously.

Unfortunately, the history of the SAB shows that private sector representation is often lacking or nonexistent; instead, the EPA picks the Board--ignoring the knowledge, expertise, and contributions of these experts.

This bill ensures that qualified experts are not excluded simply due to their affiliation. This will add value and credibility to future Board reviews.

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Mr. Chairman, we have listened to several points of view on different perspectives today. I think the majority floor leader and the chairman of the committee and a number of my colleagues did an outstanding job of explaining why this bill is necessary, why it is appropriate.

I will acknowledge to my colleague from Oregon that this is a work in progress, that clearly there are still things that need to be examined, addressed, looked at, and perfected over the course of the legislative session before, ultimately, this is signed into law.

But the underlying principles, an entity like the Environmental Protection Agency, which has such tremendous influence and control over our everyday lives--whether you are a farmer, rancher, business person, just a citizen, such tremendous control through their authority and their rulemaking process over our lives--it is important, and it is the very reason that Congress established the Scientific Advisory Board in 1978, it is important to have a knowledgeable group look over their shoulder to verify their facts, to understand the process they are going through in order that, ultimately, that rulemaking process is something that is based on sound science and is something that is appropriate.

Now, in the bill we simply say that, in effect, anyone with knowledge and expertise should be able to participate. We ask for full disclosure. If you have an economic interest, whether it is doing scientific research or in any related business, fully disclose your background. That presently is not going on. So that is an improvement. That is an enhancement.

We explicitly ask that public input be allowed, that it be encouraged. There is nothing wrong with that. There are a lot of really bright people around this country who have great understanding of the issues that affect their day-to-day lives and should be able to share that.

Can the Board stop the Environmental Protection Agency from doing something? It is an advisory board. Their power is not in being able to stop an action of the EPA, but their power is making them justify the action that they are proposing to take, to justify the science that leads to that action. There is nothing wrong with that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I suppose the bottom line is this: We live in an extremely cynical time. Surprisingly, there is distrust even of the United States Congress and all Federal institutions, I am afraid. This bill is an effort to take a step in the direction of restoring that faith and confidence. Call it enhanced transparency if you want; call it openness if you want; call it just making sure we all know where the money is going and where the money is coming from. Whatever you want to call it, this is a bill that tries to move us in the direction of not only better regulations when we must have regulations, but better science to justify those regulations and the confidence of all of our fellow citizens.

I simply ask, Mr. Chairman, when the opportunity avails--I know we will have several good amendments to discuss shortly--that my colleagues support H.R. 1029, and we move this process forward.

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