Secret Science Reform Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer a commonsense, one-word amendment to H.R. 4012, the Secret Science Reform Act.

My simple amendment adds the word ``online'' to the disclosure requirements found in this legislation.

The Congressional Budget Office has determined that my amendment would not score and would not affect direct spending or revenues. My amendment is supported by the chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, Lamar Smith. My amendment also has the support of the sponsor, Mr. Schweikert. I would like to thank both the chairman, Mr. Smith, and Congressman Schweikert for their efforts on this legislation and for their support of my amendment.

As a result of my simple, good governance amendment, the EPA will be required to make all scientific and technical information relied upon for rulemaking available online before proposing or finalizing new regulations.

I strongly support H.R. 4012, and I am proud to cosponsor this commonsense bill offered by my good friend and fellow Arizonan, David Schweikert. The underlying bill would require the Environmental Protection Agency to utilize actual science when formulating regulations, and it requires that the science be made available for peer review and reproduction.

A recent poll from the Institute for Energy Research found that approximately 90 percent of all Americans support making studies and data utilized by the Federal Government available to the general public. By the way, the general public is not stupid. The intent of the bill is transparency, and I believe the best way to accomplish that goal is to require this information to be posted online.

For far too long, the EPA has used secret studies and so-called ``peer reviews'' from biased sources to justify regulations that fit their job-killing agenda. Not only does this practice result in a lack of transparency, it also leads to hundreds of thousands of jobs being destroyed across the country by unreasonable and unnecessary regulations.

A requirement similar to my amendment was adopted by this body when the House passed H.R. 4315 this past July. A provision found in H.R. 4315 required that data used by Federal agencies for Endangered Species Act listing decisions be made publicly available and accessible through the Internet.

Finally, H.R. 4012 protects personal and confidential information and has a provision that makes clear such information will not be disclosed as a result of this act. My amendment would not conflict with such policy.

Again, all my simple, one-word amendment does is require that the scientific and technical information requirements in the underlying bill be posted online. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of my commonsense amendment, and I urge the passage of the underlying bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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