The Environmental Protection Agency has finalized a rule to limit what research it can use to craft public health protections, a move opponents argue is aimed at crippling the agency’s ability to more aggressively regulate the nation’s air and water.

The “Strengthening Transparency in Pivotal Science Underlying Significant Regulatory Actions and Influential Scientific Information” rule, which the administration began pursuing early in President Trump’s term, would require researchers to disclose the raw data involved in their public health studies before the agency could rely upon their conclusions. It will apply this new set of standards to “dose-response studies,” which evaluate how much a person’s exposure to a substance increases the risk of harm.

While EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler signed the final rule last week, he announced it Tuesday at a virtual session hosted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think tank that advocates fewer federal regulations and disputes the idea that climate change poses a major threat to the United States.

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See Also: Trump’s New Rule Restricting EPA’s Use of Certain Science Could Have Short Life (via Science)

Video: EPA Administrator Defends New Rule on Use of Scientific Data in Developing Public Health Protections (via C-SPAN)

Statements/Reactions

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

American Chemical Society Statement on Final EPA Transparency Rules

EPA’s Final ‘Censoring Science’ Rule a Dangerous Step in the Wrong Direction (via American Lung Association)

EPA Rule Restricting Science Puts Agency’s Mission at Risk (via Union of Concerned Scientists)

Trump EPA’s Censored Science Rule Jeopardizes Scientific Integrity and Public Health (via Enviromental Defense Fund)

See Also: Direct to New EPA Policy