From the “this is going to quash our grant money gravy train” department. I never thought I’d see the day where science argues against open data requirements.
From an AGU press release:
In a letter submitted to EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, AGU executive director/CEO Chris McEntee addressed concerns about recent policies mandating that EPA consider only publicly available scientific data and information when crafting rulemaking. In addition, AGU denounced reports that the agency instructed its employees to use scientifically inaccurate information about climate change when talking to the public.
Here is the letter in full:
23 April 2018
The Honorable Scott Pruitt Administrator
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20460
Dear Administrator Pruitt:
On behalf of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and its 60,000 scientist members, I am writing to express concerns about planned policy changes at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding transparency and accuracy of scientific information. We urge you to evaluate the unintended consequences of these policies and reconsider them.
Recent reports indicate that EPA is planning to implement new policies that would require the agency to use only scientific data and information that is publicly available when considering science in rule-making. The legislation this policy is based on, the HONEST Act1, has received significant opposition from the scientific community and other organizations because of the potential for this policy to exclude data vital to informed decision-making.2
AGU is fully committed and would be willing to provide assistance to efforts to ensure that scientific information is communicated openly with policymakers and the public. However, it is critical that such scientific information undergo the peer review process, which remains the gold standard of academic achievement. Despite suggestions to the contrary,3 the peer review process affords the type of informed discourse necessary for the objectivity, rigor, and legitimacy of scientific information.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that implementing a secret science policy like the one proposed by EPA would cost between an estimated $5 million over five years to $250 million annually.4 At a time when the Administration is proposing significant cuts to EPA funding, this policy would become an unnecessary burden on the agency and further hamstring its ability to protect public health and the environment. In general, to exclude vital scientific information from consideration would put our local communities’ health and well-being at risk.
Of additional concern to AGU are reports that EPA has directed its employees to use talking points regarding climate change that are contrary to the robust scientific data and the consensus of scientists across the nation and the world.5 The reported guidance requires EPA employees to
emphasize that “clear gaps remain including our understanding of the role of human activity and what we can do about it.” This is not only inaccurate, but also jeopardizes the ability of communities to respond appropriately to protect people’s health and well-being from challenges related to climate change.
AGU stands with the scientific community6 regarding the scientific consensus that climate change is occurring and is primarily driven by human activities.7 The data that supports this conclusion is not only strong but growing all the time. Failing to acknowledge and inform the public about this fact, as well as the ways in which the public can mitigate the effects and build resiliency is scientifically misleading, dangerous, and against the very mission of EPA. We as a nation need to ensure that we are addressing the pressing issues facing our communities by using and disseminating accurate, peer-reviewed and up-to-date scientific information.
AGU would welcome the opportunity to work with you on these critical issues and ensure that science can continue to appropriately inform decision-making and benefit the American public.
Respectfully,
 |
Christine McEntee Executive Director/CEO
American Geophysical Union
1 H.R. 1430, sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX-21), passed the House on 29 March 2017.
2 https://sciencepolicy.agu.org/files/2013/07/AAAS-Secret-Science-letter-McCarthy-2015.pdf
3 http://dailycaller.com/2018/03/19/epa-scott-pruitt-secret-science/
4 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/50025
5 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-energy-202/2018/03/29/the-energy-202-scott- pruitt-s-climate-message-is-now-official-epa-guidance/5abbfd3630fb042a378a2f23/?utm_term=.272c755ae673
6 https://sciencepolicy.agu.org/files/2013/07/2016climateletter6-28-16.pdf
7 https://sciencepolicy.agu.org/files/2018/02/AGU-Climate-Change-Position-Statement-Final-2013.pdf
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The AGU only supports peer-review when they pick the peers and only gives the carefully selected peers the data they want to give them. Peer-review has “evolved” since I was a peer-reviewer – or perhaps devolved is a better word in this case.
I believe the term you are seeking is “regressed”. 🙂
Or aggressed, as in: Asking me to show my work is an act of aggression.
oh they bumped it up from a microagression? 😛
AGU has a very odd idea regarding what passes for “informed decision-making”
AGU firmly believes in “pal review”, peer pressures; especially when their “pal reviewers” fail to check data, test code or mathematics while ignoring biases, assumptions and remarkable conclusions reached in spite of lack of observations or evidence.
Plus, AGU would lose funds derived from modern societies extreme pressure for researchers to publish regardless of research quality and actual findings.
Force researchers to release all data, code, calculations and observations might cause quite a few researchers to get laughed out of town.
Apparently the AGU is unable to portray any situation in a positive light.
Somehow, AGU overlooks EPA’s improved efficiency because they would be dealing with complete research.
N.B., AGU’s reference to EPA’s open and complete science requirement as “secret science”; none of which would be secret, at all.
One would have expected AGU to call research that refused to release all necessary or relevant research “secret science”. Instead, AGU appears to have it posterior backwards.
Here AGU spins, twists, doubletalks their way towards a truly bizarre belief of research, that isn’t science.
“contrary to the robust scientific data and the consensus of scientists” and “the data that supports this conclusion is not only strong but growing all the time.” is an excellent of an oxymoron.
Robust scientific data is strong and growing is a direct AGU admission that climate science is not settled!
Science is never dependent upon “consensus”, nor can science advance when a “consensus” rules and overrules research.
In one letter to Honorable Scott Pruitt Administrator, the AGU admits:
A) climate science is not settled,
B) that the AGU stands foursquare for anti-scientific practice and beliefs
C) that AGU willfully and perhaps maliciously misinterprets open science practices as “secret science”
D) that AGU much prefers government use unproved, unreplicated, undocumented research for making decisions.
Defund all government grants and awards going AGU or AGU members until they can be independently reviewed.
“The legislation this policy is based on . . . has received significant opposition from the scientific community and other organizations because of the potential for this policy to exclude data vital to informed decision-making.”
What struck me about this statement was its sheer arrogance. Scientific organizations should not presume they are some kind of authority on what kind of evidence is appropriate for “informed” decision-making. They aren’t decisionmakers, and in a democracy, the idea that technocrats should be making policy based on evidence shielded from the public is offensive.
What they really mean is that they want politicians and agencies to listen to them, but they don’t think it necessary that their work be subjected to public scrutiny in exchange for the privileged position of having the politician’s or agency’s ear. To put to differently, they presume that they are the appropriate actors to “inform” the decisionmakers, but at the same time they don’t think that the public needs to be informed of the scientific evidence behind the information they provide. Everyone should just trust them because they are scientists.
You wonder how well this kind of argument would go over in a courtroom, for example. Should a forensic expert be able to testify as to conclusions or opinions formed by an analysis of evidence not offered to the defendant? Let’s say the government has a secret algorithm to hack into a cell phone of a defendant, and uses it to offer evidence of a confession or a video of the crime being committed, but argues that the algorithm used ought not be given to the defendant to see if it has any flaws, because to do so would threaten national security. Certainly you could argue that preventing such evidence from being admitted at trial would “exclude data vital to informed decision-making,” but it would also undercut public faith in the prosecution and any resulting guilty verdict, and certainly hurt the defendant’s right to a fair trial.
> They aren’t decisionmakers, and in a democracy, the idea
> that technocrats should be making policy based on evidence
> shielded from the public is offensive.
I believe this is exactly what Eisenhower warned against in 1961
Nice summary. And I’m all for defunding anything that seeks to bolster the “climate change’ narrative at this point; since the “science” is “settled” and all.
“only scientific data and information that is publicly available when considering science in rule-making”
You don’t base global policy response to self proclaimed highest threat to the planet on anything less than this. The letter needs to be enshrined for future posterity to view in a glass vault in the museum of science policy distortion by advocacy groups.
At least it is polite…..
Passively-aggressive faux-polite.
“AGU would welcome the opportunity to work with you on these critical issues and ensure that science can continue to appropriately inform decision-making and benefit the American public.”
Mr. Pruitt should accept this offer and request that AHU establish guidelines for their members to comply with the new requirement. The data should be collected, organized, and handled in ways that insure public availability of any part that is pertinent to the result and proposed policy but any names or addresses or such non-essential data can be declared not public.
Did they not consider the implications of referencing “The Daily Caller” and “Washington Post” as sources?
By all means use private data in privately funded corporate research. Use the results for profit. Just don’t put those papers into the public domain…at all.
The other thing science must do is be reproducible and an argument of “get your own data” really doesn’t cut it for the real world.
I used to believe that peer review was the best way until… Fleischmann and Pons and cold fusion. It was peer reviewed and dead wrong. It took only a week after publication to be proven to be BS.
After that scientists got more and more fearful of being proven wrong in their life’s quests that they became less and less willing to give other real scientists the ammo to prove them wrong.
Nullius in verba
One of the problems with Pons and Fleischmann is they didn’t follow proper peer review. They announced with a big press release, not in a recognized journal, and resisted public documentation of their procedure. Only later, under intense pressure, did they publish something approaching proper peer review standards.
Science, done right, offers forgiveness for being in error if you’re open with your work and learn from mistakes.
“….potential for this policy to exclude data vital to informed decision-making….” And that would happen because why?
The unsaid part is “You won’t be able to make policy and push The Agenda based on BS being tarted up as “science” anymore.” (The Horror!)
The AGU will be much better off when Chrissy is gone!
Hau hau
having re read the following
” The Congressional Budget Office estimated that implementing a secret science policy like the one proposed by EPA would cost between an estimated $5 million over five years to $250 million annually.”
i now believe as this is a publicly available letter the above was deliberately inserted to confuse anyone that has a passing glance at the letter. it gives the opposite impression to the intention of the new proposal. typical climate science duplicity.
I was a member of AGU for many years. I resigned after the Peter Gleick affair, when they refused to kick him out. Sent a letter detailing my grievances; never received a reply. A very ethical organization, whose chair of their Task Force on Scientific Ethics admitted that he obtained documents from the Heartland Institute under false pretenses.
And when the documents didn’t contain the smoking gun he was hoping for, proceeded to write said smoking gun himself and include it with the other documents.
The original “Alternative Facts.” Pathetic that someone like that wasn’t instantly run out of a supposedly “scientific” society on a rail.
Which should tell you everything you need to know about who’s “in charge” and their character. Certainly, it isn’t “scientists” (in the REAL sense).
It’s laugh out loud funny that the CBO is saying that EPA will go beyond what the law requires and spend money to promote the distribution of science and that the AGU, instead of saying that EPA should stay in its lane and not spend the money, uses that excess spending as a constant of the universe and says the waste of money justifies not requiring the public availability of data.
Will Pruitt’s policy be retroactive?
Will the Thompsons finally be required to archive their “data” after hiding them for decades? I know he probably hasn’t enjoyed too many EPA contracts, but glasnost might spread to other agencies.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/04/will-lonnie-thompson-archive-this-new-ice-core-data/
I’m still laughing on how this dimwit equates … to use only scientific data and information that is publicly available …. to “secret science”
Someone lost a screw somewhere along the way.
This could be one of those cases we can ask, are they that clueless or hoping we are?
+100
Per:
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/50025
“Although H.R. 1030 would not require EPA to disseminate any scientific or technical information that it relies on to support covered actions, the bill would not prohibit EPA from doing so. Based on information from EPA, CBO expects that EPA would spend $250 million annually over the next few years to ensure the transparency of information and data supporting some covered actions.”
==============
The country is already ~20 trillion dollars in debt, do they think another 250 million is gonna burn out the printing press or what ?
Sheesh.
It’ll SAVE us TRILLIONS (from unnecessary regulations that would otherwise be enacted), so think of the $250Million as an “investment” that will bear MASSIVE dividends.
There are so many who gave their lives for freedom.
Freedom of science is worth far more than nitpicked $250Million.
But some “scientists” seem to prefer spoon-feeding and servility.
I don’t understand what costs money here. Just make your data available. I could make all my business data and research publicly available in about 10 minutes with a few clicks. And we have a lot of it.
Let’s see now.
Unless the US really has a scifi-type “climate control” weapon (that it is, according to the alarmist, aiming at itself) then there are zero national security secrets involved.
I really doubt that the AGU or Penn State “SkunkWorks” has designed an SR-98 as a replacement for for the SR-71 that can be armed with a “Climate Control Pod”.
Obama claimed something along the lines that CaGW was the US’s greatest National Security Threat. That implies that the US is NOT in control of the climate.
How could making the data behind “climate change”, or any other USEPA regulations, publicly available for scrutiny a bad thing?
Some of the “public” might have a last name beginning with “M”? They might “find something wrong”?
Here, let me help fix the AGU’s letter to Administrator Pruitt.
“… has received significant opposition from the scientific community and other organizations because of the potential for this policy to exclude secret and or undisclosed data vital to informed decision-making..”
That is really what this is about. It will make it legally difficult for future EPA directors to justify reversing the policy of going back to using hidden, undisclosed data to arrive at a politically desired rule. And by “legally difficult” I mean via inevitable court challenges to rules using the Democrat’s secret science in policy making.
And this letter from AGU, coinciding with the AAAS open letter, and jointly written letter by Science, Nature, PNAS, PLOS, and Cell editors… all has the coordination fingerprint of Ceres.org. The Liberal’s Deep money at work. Corruption at work.
Ceres doesn’t meet the charity standards of Give.org:
http://www.give.org/charity-reviews/national/environment/ceres-in-boston-ma-36276
The reason that Ceres will never produce an Effectiveness Report is that the true nature of what Ceres deems “effective” is quite different from its publicly stated mission. An Effectiveness Report is a public document that can be scrutinized by outsiders (their political opponents who know what they really do) for inconsistencies.
Thus CERES can not admit to “an appraisal be done assessing the organization’s performance and effectiveness and determining future actions required to achieve its mission.”
True, since its mission is to destroy capitalism by socializing it.
PS: I can see why Give.org values donor privacy, but I personally think it would be instructive to learn the culprits who back Ceres.
Felix,
CERES.org does list its Investor Network, which different from a donor. A donor gves money without strings.
An investor wants a return, something for their money. What they do is help ensure governments continue to fund renewable energy with tax credits and rebates. The Green’s Climate Hustle.
It’s a veritable Who’s Who in the neo-Marxist Movement and where the corruption exists in Blue States.
A partial list:
AFL-CIO
American Fed of State, County and Municipal Employees
BlackRock, Inc.
California Public Employees’ Retirement System
California State Controller’s Office
California State Teachers’ Retirement System
California State Treasurer’s Office
Connecticut Office of the State Treasurer
East Bay Municipal Utility District Retirement System
Florida State Board of Administration
Illinois State Treasurer
International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Pension Fund
Laborers’ International Union of North America
Maine Public Employee Retirement System
Maryland State Retirement and Pension System
Maryland Treasurer’s Office
Massachusetts Office of the State Treasurer
Minnesota State Board of Investment
Montgomery County Employees’ Retirement System
New Mexico State Treasurer’s Office
New York City Employees’ Retirement System
New York City Office of the Comptroller
New York State Comptroller
New York State Teachers’ Retirement System
Oregon Office of the State Treasurer
Pennsylvania Treasury Department
Rhode Island Office of the General Treasurer
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Rockefeller Capital Management
San Francisco Employees’ Retirement System
Seattle City Employees’ Retirement System
Service Employees International Union
The Sierra Club Foundation
UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust
United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund
University of California
University of Washington
Vermont Office of the State Treasurer
Washington State Investment Board
Washington State Treasurer
Murderers’ Row.
I think Pruitt should take it a step further, and re-consider all regulations previously enacted by the EPA. Disclose ALL science underlying the decision to enact such regulations. Data/methods not disclosed or available? Rescind the regulation. And if it is available, make it public, and anything that doesn’t pass muster upon examination after that should similarly result in the associated regulations being rescinded.
Make all the related communications public as well, so we can all see the background collusions, corruption and cronyism involved. Transparency NOW!
Oh please. Pruitt is the most corrupt head of the EPA in decades. Sweetheart deals with lobbyists to buy expensive houses in Oklahoma at below market prices? Renting a condo in the best part of DC for $50/night from a lobbyist? Get a clue, that’s the very definition of corruption.
Once again, Chris defines evil as anyone who disagrees with him and is willing to tell any lie to support his desire to retain access to other people’s money.
For a guy who whines on and on and on and on …
About links, I don’t see any links here.
MarkW – where exactly did I call Pruitt evil? Show me, if you have the spine to do so. Unlike you, I’m not on the dole.
As far as links, here you go: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/fired-whistleblower-details-corruption-epa-n865461
@ur momisugly MarkW,
I see you accused Chris of telling a lie.
Unless you’ve got iron-clad proof, accusations like that…..can go south in a hurry.
“I never thought I’d see the day where science argues against open data”
Really? From the “It’s worse than we thought” department:
https://hhgpc0.wixsite.com/harde-2017-censored
https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergleick/2011/09/02/paper-disputing-basic-science-of-climate-change-is-fundamentally-flawed-editor-resigns-apologizes/#5ce8dcbe3db8
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that implementing a secret science policy like the one proposed by EPA would cost between an estimated $5 million over five years to $250 million annually.
The writer must figure that nobody is going to follow the link for footnote 4. In that reference, at least, the CBO says no such thing:
Although H.R. 1030 would not require EPA to disseminate any scientific or technical information that it relies on to support covered actions, the bill would not prohibit EPA from doing so. Based on information from EPA, CBO expects that EPA would spend $250 million annually over the next few years to ensure the transparency of information and data supporting some covered actions.
There is no reference here to five million dollars. And the CBO says that the annual $250 million is based on information from EPA. What exactly what does that mean? Sounds like the CBO is simply reporting EPA propaganda, rather than making their own evaluation.
OK, a little more light here. One needs to click on the button at the top of the writer’s link to pull down the full document, which does indeed authorize up to a million dollars in redirected funding.
And then read the whole section, “Basis of Estimate,” wherein the CBO essentially tosses the whole thing back into the hands of the EPA:
The costs of implementing H.R. 1030 are uncertain because it is not clear how EPA would meet the bill’s requirements…If EPA continued to rely on as many scientific studies as it has used in recent years, while increasing the collection and dissemination of all the technical information
used in such studies as directed by H.R. 1030, then implementing the bill would cost at least several hundred million dollars a year. However, EPA could instead rely on significantly fewer studies each year in support of its mission, and limit its spending on data collection and database
construction activities to a relatively small expansion of existing study-related activity; in that scenario, implementing the bill would be much less costly.
Thus, the costs of implementing H.R. 1030 would ultimately depend on how EPA adapts to the bill’s requirements.
(my bold)
“If EPA continued to rely on as many scientific studies as it has used in recent years, while increasing the collection and dissemination of all the technical information used in such studies as directed by H.R. 1030, then implementing the bill would cost at least several hundred million dollars a year.”
I don’t understand why the EPA needs to ‘increasing the collection and dissemination of all the technical information used in such studies’. The authors of the studies publish their studies and would be required to make their technical information available to everyone.
Good work, Juan.
Even at an annual coat of $250 million/year, the cost/benefit analysis of HONEST Act1 seems quite promising, when you consider:
1) eliminating the time and labor cost of unreproducible junk science consuming EPA staff resources,
2) eliminating the huge EPA costs of implementing and monitoring compliance for erroneous regulations based on unreproducible junk science,
3) eliminating the overwhelming costs forced on companies and consumers to meet and comply with junk regulations based on unreproducible junk science,
4) the positive effects of sharply reducing the funding sources for unreproducible junk science because the funding agencies will know with certainty that their politically motivated junk science will not be considered by the EPA.
5) the very positive effects of restoring honesty and integrity to science evaluation processes and ‘rule making’ processes at the EPA,
6) the renewed self-respect that every honest scientist will realize as the festering putrification of unreproducible junk science is lanced and drained from the feverous Body of Climate Science.
Drain That Swamp, Director Pruitt!
+97,000,000
Science is by definition reproducible which requires data and methods be published. This at a time when we have a crisis with a large percentage of peer reviewed papers being not reproducible.
But we are supposed to just accept “secret science” (trust me, I’m a scientist)? In this time of “hide the decline”? Ah – no! Show the evidence and let others confirm (or not) the result.
I don’t know what you call “secret science” but it ain’t scienct.
Ah but that’s just it; this new policy won’t allow “secret science” to be treated like REAL science any more, and THAT is what all the clamoring is about.
Paid up subscribers to this organization,have the opportunity to amuse themselves, at the expense of their pompous “leadership;
“Dear Administrator Pruitt:
On behalf of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and its 60,000 scientist members, I am writing to express concerns……..”
Dear Christine McEntee Executive Director/CEO,American Geophysical Union..make that 59,999 members thank you,also please refund this years contribution…Yours Sincerely X member.
AGU is so easy to administer.
Ricdre The ministry of war already has had its Orwellian name change. That was when the department was renamed defence in adjunct with ever increasing self appointed assault abroad justified as ‘police action.’ Now about that increasing of militarization of domestic policing….which worked so well in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc., etc. The FBI has been using COIN for decades BTW
You have to figure corporations lobbying the regulation easement granting structure prefer their bullshit not be referred to in plainly understandable terms.
John Farnham: Point taken, but you have to admit that Ministry of Defense is a lot closer to its actual function than Ministry of Peace.
No you can’t take your car to your own mechanic before you buy it. We used car dealers peer review each other`s cars before we sell them. Peer review is the gold standard of used car dealing.
And you, the buyer, cannot see the CARFAX but trust me, there is nothing in it to worry about.
of course you can’t let the buyer see the CARFAX report, they might interpret it “wrong” and not buy the lemon you are trying to sell them