Political Quotes

“The bill before us today does undertake the laudable goal of improving transparency at the EPA. However, as I stated previously and as my colleagues mentioned, this bill, as written, does not accomplish that goal; instead, H.R. 1422 will increase the influence of industry on EPA decisionmaking, including industry members with a financial conflict of interest, while reducing the role of qualified academic researchers in helping to guide regulatory action that is based on sound science. The Union of Concerned Scientists said: At the same time, this bill encourages corporate experts to join the SAB. It creates roadblocks for academic experts to meaningfully participate by banning experts' participation and advising activities that directly or indirectly involve review and evaluation of their own work. This effectively turns the idea of conflict of interest on its head with the bizarre presumption that corporate experts with direct financial interests are not affected, while academics who work on these issues are. Breast Cancer Action wrote: This bill's overly broad restriction, that a member of the SAB cannot participate in a discussion that cites the member's own work, is counterproductive and goes far beyond the commonsense limits imposed by the National Academies. Of course, a scientist with expertise on topics that SAB addresses likely will have done peer-reviewed studies and other work on that topic.…”