On the recordMarch 17, 2015
Our government's ability to protect public health is at stake when we consider legislation like the bill before us today. Unfortunately, we do not have to look far to see the impacts of these kinds of delay tactics. Articles published last year by the Center for Public Integrity chronicle efforts to slow down and to undermine the EPA's efforts to keep arsenic out of drinking water and benzene out of American workplaces. When we prevent the EPA from taking timely action to protect the public from known poisons and cancer-causing agents, we are putting lives at risk. The EPA's science is tied to its mission--to protect public health and the environment through rational regulation. Scientific research, knowledge, and technical expertise are fundamental to the EPA's mission and inform its regulatory functions. The need for that expertise is why Congress created advisory bodies such as the Science Advisory Board in the first place--to provide independent advice on the science underpinning regulation, which, in turn, allows the EPA Administrator to make sound regulatory decisions. Instead of undermining the scientific advice the EPA receives, we should be giving the Agency the tools it needs to strengthen and improve the regulatory process with sound science. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to join me, once again, in opposing this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.
