Ed Markey: “I yield myself such time as I may consume. This amendment would prevent EPA from using important high-quality scientific…”

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. This amendment would prevent EPA from using important high-quality scientific research when setting standards to protect public health and save lives. This amendment establishes an entirely new requirement when EPA sets national ambient air quality standards--the scientific health- based standards that essentially tell us how much pollution is safe to breathe. Under this amendment, EPA cannot use any study in setting these air quality standards unless the study's underlying data has been made public. Why is this a problem? Because data sets underlying peer-reviewed scientific studies are the private property of the scientists that gathered them. In many cases, those data sets may include confidential business information, or personal information such as an individual's health records. And the public availability of underlying data is not relevant to the quality of a study. Publication of data sets is not required by peer review journals and such publication is not a common practice in the scientific community. EPA cannot require scientists to give up their private property when they publish their peer-reviewed studies, so in many cases this amendment would block EPA from using relevant, high-quality studies. This policy has long been on the industry's wish list, and we just have to make sure that we don't make it possible for them to put it on the books as a law.…”