EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, I rise today to offer an amendment that I believe really strikes at the heart of the issues that were raised by the EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act, and that is the need for sound, objective, and transparent decisionmaking by our Federal agencies.

I think we all recognize how important it is to bring in outside experts to inform Agency policies and protocols. Not only does this allow the engagement of Americans who are practicing in their fields into a process that will impact their livelihoods, it also ensures that the Federal Government can reach out to access the very best scientific knowledge, including experts with a depth and variety of knowledge that we wouldn't have access to through our own internal resources.

With the EPA's Science Advisory Board in particular, that means an independent review of technical information that is used to ground Agency proposals and regulations. The efforts of this bill to seek relevant expertise outside the Agency, however, without this amendment, are limited by its failure to include academics, science, and research-based institutions in its solicitations for Board membership.

That is what this amendment corrects. Not to specifically solicit Board membership in these fields, as we do in others, would be a huge mistake on our part.

Institutions within my district alone house some leading global experts in public and environmental health. Joe Ryan--a current member of the EPA's Science Advisory Board and a professor of environment, engineering, and applied sciences at CU Boulder--leads his field in the study of ecological, health, economic, and sociologic impacts of natural gas development on surrounding communities.

Professor Ryan's work is data driven, thorough, strongly objective, and would be of great help to policymakers, as is the work of James White, an institution at CU Boulder since he started the INSTAAR Stable Isotope Lab back in 1989.

Since its opening, Professor White and the INSTAAR Stable Isotope Lab have produced groundbreaking evidence regarding the rapidity of shifts in climate change and their origins in internal planetary adjustments.

Without the work of professors like Joe Ryan and James White, we would be decades behind in our understanding of environmental science and public health priorities, and the work of the EPA would suffer as a result.

In April of last year, Colorado State University professor Diana Wall was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a prestigious group of global thinkers. Professor Wall pioneered our understanding of soil biodiversity. As a result, it drew global praise for its unprecedented findings.

Professor George Wittemyer, also at CSU, recently produced the first verifiable estimation of the impacts of the ongoing ivory crisis on Africa's elephant populations. His findings, subsequently distributed and utilized globally, amount to significant breakthroughs in the field.

These professors, like these and many others, are critical to progress not only within the realm of their academic interests, but throughout the daily lives of American families in helping to prevent the eroding of our public health and our global environment. That is what the amendment I offer today is all about.

By soliciting the input of academics and research scientists who base their work on independent and transparent aims, we advance the expertise of the EPA and ensure that a variety of decisionmaking information is available.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the wealth of support that has been shown for this amendment, and I hope that we are able to accomplish this amendment. I am thrilled to have the support of the gentleman from Oklahoma.

To the extent that it is within our power, it is this body's responsibility to ensure our Federal partners are receiving the very best available objective information. My amendment will allow information that has its repository in our institutions of higher education to be able to serve as advisers for the EPA.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on my amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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