Democrats and liberal groups are raising alarms about a series of Republican-backed bills that they say pervert the basic principles behind independent science research.
While Republicans have been attacking high-profile regulations such as the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed limits on carbon emissions from power plants, liberal groups say the GOP also is quietly dismantling the underpinnings of climate change research through mundane legislation.
Republicans — as well as some centrist Democrats — have found ways to sell those issues as matters of transparency and scientific fairness. And because the bills are complex, groups that oppose them are having difficulty generating enthusiasm to defeat the measures.
“If you fight about how the science is derived … we’re not going to think about the future of the regulatory process or how science informs regulation. And that’s the problem. These bills are complicated, they’re complex, they do great harm — but not in way the public is going to rise up and say, ‘That’s terrible,'” Celia Wexler, senior Washington representative with the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy, told the Washington Examiner.
The EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act, which is sponsored by Sens. John Boozman, R-Ark., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., in the Senate and has already passed the House, is an example.
The bill would create membership “quotas” to allow industry officials to join the independent scientific panels that advise the agency and force members to disclose financial interests. It is the companion of legislation aimed to get the EPA to release raw data used in studies that inform its regulations. The EPA has said that is impossible since it relies on proprietary studies.
Republican lawmakers have cast the legislation as an issue of transparency and contend the science panels shut out public input. They also have noted they have made changes to the bill at the request of opponents, such as removing a prohibition against experts serving on panels that discuss their own work.
“If you want credibility and you want trust in government then you have to look at the independent science advisors,” Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said during a Wednesday Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Management and Regulatory Oversight hearing.
“The question is whether the people on it are being picked in a responsible manner,” Rounds continued.
All of that sounds innocuous and sensible. And that’s part of the difficulty for Democrats and science groups who say several GOP-backed bills could seriously damage the scientific process.
“Obviously a lot of it is motivated by polling and that it sounds good to their constituents,” Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., told the Examiner. “I think one of the most stark things you see out of the Republicans now is that particularly in the field of climate is they’re not just ignoring what the scientists are saying, they’re refuting it.”
Opponents say the EPA science panel bill contains a number of problems. Chief among them is allowing officials from the industries that agencies are supposed to regulate to be involved in independent analysis. Being required to disclose financial information also could deter top scientists, who participate on panels as a sort of extracurricular and receive a stipend for their time.
Environmental groups and Democrats have their eyes on several other bills as well.
The House Commerce, Science and Justice spending bill introduced Tuesday proposes cutting funding for the NASA earth sciences program to $1.68 billion for fiscal 2016, down from $1.77 billion. Republicans said the funding shift would put more back into space exploration, which has dropped under President Obama, and cut programs that other agencies already cover. Critics said, however, that NASA’s earth sciences program plays a key role in monitoring trends used in climate change research.
On Wednesday, the House passed a reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act — a bill designed to promote basic research — that blocks federal agencies from using the results of any basic research project to inform future regulatory action. Detractors say it would reduce the National Science Foundation’s autonomy in grantmaking, though Republican supporters say the bill would cut back on frivolous projects.
“As [the National Science Foundation] reviews these grant proposals, a question they should ask on each one is how will the principal purpose of this research project look either in a headline on the New York Times or in a tweet,” Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, told The Los Angeles Times in March.
It’s not the type of stuff that fits neatly on campaign literature.
“A lot of that is also politicians getting involved in telling scientists what to do, and that’s always a dangerous thing,” Peters said. “Basic scientific research, you’re not really working toward a specific end.”
Former President Ronald Reagan felt the same way when Congress sent him a bill in 1982 that would have established quotas on EPA independent science panels similar to what the EPA science advisory bill proposes. The Republican president vetoed the bill, saying, “The maintenance of a free, essentially self-governing scientific research community is one of the great strengths of our nation.”
Whit Ayres, a veteran GOP strategist, said it’s important for Republicans to steer clear of appearing as if they outright reject science. For GOP lawmakers in more moderate states, some may even feel they benefit from agreeing with the majority of climate scientists who say climate change is driven primarily by humans.
“It sometimes plays a symbolic role of showing whether or not a candidate is at least sympathetic to some of the science on the issue without necessarily locking themselves to them into a position that would be controversial,” Ayres said in a recent interview.
Still, the bills that have liberals incensed aren’t going register on the public’s radar, Ayres said. And for most Republicans, neither will climate change.
“Climate change competes with campaign finance reform and gay marriage as the least important issues on the array of possible issues candidates could address,” Ayres said.
