Secret Science Reform Act of 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Have you ever had a moment at which you are approaching the microphone--and you have got to accept that we are all passionate about our views--and you have heard some things that, shall we say, start to get your blood pressure moving a bit, but let me see if I can do this without being hyperbolic and then walk through some of the realities of the information that is laid out in front of me right here.

First, I do want to respond to something that Ranking Member Johnson said. I want to first caveat that she has always been very kind to me, but we have the confirmation from the EPA, itself--and we will put the documents into the Record--that they are perfectly capable of blinding anything that is confidential, anything that is personal. I mean, we have the comments from Administrator McCarthy on March 7 walking us through that they can do this, and they didn't see it as a real problem.

Let me walk through something else that I am finding sort of absurd, and I am having a little trouble finding the best way to articulate this. We spent about an hour in our office sort of just searching the Internet on this subject. If you go back about a decade ago, a number of our friends on the left were demanding something almost identical to this. So what is different? It wouldn't happen to be a different philosophy, a different President, a different party in the White House, would it?

Let me back up and say: Why do I embrace this Secret Science bill, H.R. 4012?

I genuinely, in every fiber of my being, believe that we will get better policy, better design, more creative ideas because, whether you are on the left, the right, or are just an active addition, you do not know whether the EPA rule sets are optimal. You may believe they are, but we are doing it on faith. Peer review is wonderful except for the fact that the peer reviewers don't see the underlying data. The beauty of this piece of legislation is that neither you nor I right now knows, in the absolute collective analysis, whether the EPA is even going far enough or whether it is going too far or whether there is another approach that would be dramatically more efficient.

What happens when that researcher gets his hands on a linear data set and matches it up with something else that no one had thought of putting in there and, all of a sudden, discovers the noise in the data that there are opportunities to do it better, faster, more efficiently, to save lives, or to maybe even do it cheaper?

You will not know that until the cabal that right now has the franchise on the information, on the brokerage of the data, is broken up. What is so stunningly disheartening here is that much of this concept, if you go back and look at the speeches from the President in 2007 and 2008, and at memos from the President 18 months ago, from OMB, demanding this, saying this was the wave of the future if you embrace science--but not the science of an elite few. The fact of the matter is our Nation--our country--and our world is made up of really smart people who have the right and the ability to give us input to do this better.

I beg of my fellow Members here to stop being afraid of true transparency. Stop defending the incumbent class that thinks it has the only legitimate scientists who have the right to put forward what our future looks like.

I may be behind this microphone in a couple of years from now if this bill passes, saying: I never knew we weren't going far enough. You may be behind that microphone over there, saying: The crowd analysis of the data says there was a dramatically better way. But we need to pass this bill to have that opportunity.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Chairman, as I approach the mike here, I want to make it clear that my friend on the other side, who is speaking for this amendment, has been very kind to me and my office, but the amendment ultimately doesn't do what we just heard.

Let's walk through the sentence. ``Any peer-reviewed.'' It doesn't say ``highest and best.''

Okay. Let's walk through the next portion of this. Peer review, if you actually look at the methodology and the mechanics, is the study plausible, credible? They don't get the underlying data set.

Do we all remember our Statistics 101 class? The multiple parts of an equation that the sample sets are where so many of the difficulties actually are; yet we are going to rely on peer review, for peer reviewers that never see the underlying data.

The fact of the matter is if any of you have Web access right now, there is Web site after Web site after Web site right now talking about the retraction of peer-reviewed articles.

You are willing to hand hundreds of billions of dollars of potential costs and regulations, you are willing to hand the health of Americans over and not be willing to trust transparency where there is an egalitarian nature, where my university, your university, a researcher here, a researcher maybe on the other side of the world, someone that just happens to be darn good at math, and has some other data sets out there and matches it, but they are excluded because they don't meet the definition of the official science, official reviewers, and even the official reviewers never see the underlying data.

This amendment does not say the finest and the best and the most highest standard of review. It says, ``any peer-reviewed.''

With that, Mr. Chairman, I request my brothers and sisters here in this building to vote ``no'' on this amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. SCHWEIKERT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

On this particular occasion, on this motion to recommit, this MTR, it does win a point on creativity. But if we actually just heard part of it, you are telling me that the EPA, when they respond to a spill, they are showing up embracing secret information on how they are responding. It is absurd.

Maybe even the motion may be well-meaning, but when you start using definitions of ``emergency,'' ``community,'' ``including'' with a long dash, we all know where that leads, and it leads both to chaos, inefficiency, and actually doesn't make a lot of drafting sense. So let's actually move on to what we are really here about: the underlying bill.

I have been shocked at sort of the crazy hyperbole that we have heard today about the secret science bill. This bill is actually very simple. All it does is provide transparency substantially as President Obama campaigned on.

Walk through the mechanics. We were having a little debate in our office whether I should hold these up. This here is a stack of letters, memos, demands from folks on the left. It just happened to be there was a Republican President, and even some of these when they were in the majority here, demanding disclosure of the underlying data from the EPA. There is even part of here where the former then-chairman was demanding the data and saying if he didn't get it he was going after contempt.

So what has changed? Seriously, what has changed here with the left on transparency? Is it just the fact that we now have a Democrat in the White House?

So let's actually walk through what we have all campaigned on in here. Is there a Member here that, when you got in front of your constituents, did not promise more transparency in government? That is what this is about. If you are going to create rule sets that affect every American's life, their health, their economic future, don't they have the right to see the underlying data?

And think of the arrogance that is going on right here. If you believe that the EPA is the sole keeper of all great knowledge, that their cabal is the only one qualified to be creative, to understand is there a better way, a more efficient way, a healthier way, then vote against the bill. But if you believe in the American people, if you believe in our institution, if you believe there is amazing knowledge all over this country and all over this world, this is the transparency that makes us healthier, that makes us more efficient, that makes decisionmaking coming out of the EPA much more rational. This is what we all campaigned on. This is what we promised. Let's go vote for it.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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