House passes bills that will make it harder for EPA to protect public health – The Pump Handle

"The House of Representatives has passed two bills that, if they clear the Senate and are signed by President Trump, will make it much harder for EPA to do the important work of analyzing, warning about, and regulating health threats in the environment. The HONEST Act, introduced by House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Chair Lamar Alexander (R-Texas), would severely limit the research findings EPA could use in creating a wide range of communications, standards, and regulations. The EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act, introduced by Representative Frank Lucas (R-Oklahoma), would make it much harder for academic researchers to serve on the advisory boards that inform agency decisions – with the likely result that more of those seats would be filled by industry scientists – and introduce new time-consuming responsibilities for the SAB."