Lamar Smith: “First of all, I want to thank my colleague and friend from Massachusetts for offering this amendment, but I must oppose…”

“First of all, I want to thank my colleague and friend from Massachusetts for offering this amendment, but I must oppose it. The gentleman's amendment implies that the bill does something that, in fact, it does not. The amendment also creates a loophole the EPA Administrator could easily exploit. First, by stating that nothing in the act prevents the EPA from considering or relying upon peer reviewed science, the amendment appears to imply that the bill would do otherwise. This is simply not true. The EPA, through its implementation of the Information Quality Act, is already required to rely on peer reviewed information. Nothing in this legislation changes that. What this bill would accomplish--and what the gentleman's amendment would undermine--is to ensure that the science the EPA relies upon is publicly available and verifiable. Independent scientists don't have an opportunity to examine the assumptions and methodologies that EPA relies upon when it makes public regulations. It is time for the EPA to show its work and come out into the daylight. Peer review alone is not a sufficient check. Peer reviewers are not always provided the underlying data, and the quality of peer review is highly variable. The simple premise behind H.R. 1030 is that public policy should be backed up by public data. Peer review alone does not allow independent scientists to verify the EPA's claims.…”