The Pentagon has weighed in against a controversial Environmental Protection Agency proposal that would block the agency from using scientific studies that do not make public the raw data used in research.

“While we agree that public access to information is very important, we do not believe that failure of the agency to obtain a publication’s underlying data from an author external to the agency should negate its use,” Patricia Underwood, a senior Pentagon official in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment, wrote in recent formal public comments on the EPA proposal, which were first reported Tuesday by E&E News.