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 letter is missing a line . Only paid lobbyist work should be accepted .
This letter says it all . Corrupt to the core .
It would be nice to know how many of the 60K members of AGU actually approved of this letter. I will bet at the most it was solely the board’s idea. Yet I think McEntee is letting the cat out of the bag. If we, the evil public, had access to all the data EPA technocrats have used then it might just be possible to demonstrate just how wrong they are. It also might mean we would find out just how bad the data really is and therefore how incompetent the people that have collected the data really are. Of course they also may be trying to protect the unknown, in other words the data doesn’t actually exist which EPA has used to make policies and regulations.
According to Kristi, only trained and certified “climate scientists” can properly understand this data.
Anyone else who sees it might draw the wrong conclusion based on their lack of proper conditioning. And this would be dangerous.
Yeah, dangerous to the continuation of their gravy train
They will have to own up to the fact that much of the “science” is not physical. It is simply outputs from models. They will have to justify why their projections have been so wrong for the last 20+ years.
Talk about slimy writing:
The “policy” is the Secret Science Reform Act*, i.e. a policy to end secret science!
Here’s what The American Chemistry Council (ACC) had to say about the “Honest Act’:
*H.R. 1030, Secret Science Reform Act of 2015
**H.R. 1430, the “Honest and Open New EPA Science Treatment Act of 2017
“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.”
One wonders where the AGU has been for the past couple of decades as the peer review process has been sacrificed on the alter of politics?
From replication issues to lack of data access even AFTER papers are accepted for publication and further, to obstruction by conspiracy to prevent anyone with alternate opinions being able to test the results and/or conclusions, environment and climate fields have become a joke,
Using peer review as a weapon is also a main tactic – it’s right handy to challenge “where’s you peer review” when you control the PR process so that alternate views cannot be published.
“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.”
Wait… I thought the EPA is implementing a NON_secret science policy?
Is this just more 1984 newspeak?
How exactly does publishing the data when the paper is published interfere with the peer review process.
Which, by definition, occurs prior to publishing?
Indeed!
Obviously what they fear is the light being cast on just how corrupt and meaningless “peer review” has actually become!
Prior to 1950s ( the golden age of Physics ) papers were published and they had to withstand public scrutiny not a closed private review. Einstein submiitted his Special Theory of Relativity to Max Planck who encourage him to submit his paper to the general Physics community for review. Peer Review is often used to prevent ideas from seeing the light of day.
I used to grade papers on material I knew less about.
(1) Note the lack of peer reviewed footnotes despite their insistence on such.
(2) Obviously confusion of consensus with analysis.
(3)( “…. has received significant opposition from the scientific community… ”) is based on a AAAS letter listing about a dozen universities and 20 societies, none from marine science.
(4) Said letter is erroneous about research on oil pollution –(“Rather these studies are replicated utilizing statistical modeling. The same may be true for scientific data from a one-time event (e.g., Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill) where the data are gathered in real time.”) Oil pollution studies predate WWII, replicated in many cases including some funded by the industry and government.
(5) Such alleged scientific certainty exists in very few cases, certainly not properly referenced in the letter.
And other as elaborated above. If this was a freshman or sophomore course, a D, junior or senior an F, graduate student told to find another curriculum. Of course, this was back in the day when students got flunked.
If I was an AGU member I would be exceptionally embarrassed.
“If I was an AGU member I would be exceptionally embarrassed.”
So would I. And I think ANY scientist should be embarrassed that such a letter should come from a “science” society. Time for real scientists to begin expressing their disgust at this kind of politically motivated BS.
If you are a member of AGU and you disagree with this advocating against open data and verifiable science, then you should terminate your membership ASAP. Your name is being sullied. It’s sad that almost all academic groups have devolved into nothing more than a socialist circle jerk.
“It’s sad that almost all academic groups have devolved into nothing more than a socialist circle jerk.”
Nice summation of the sad state of affairs.
“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.”
Fine then make it public as it grows and those paying for the collection of it expect the timely raw data not the homogenised, pasteurised version much later thanks. You collect it, you have it and then you publish it on the net and carry on analysing it. What’s so hard about that?
EPA before Pruitt, acted on bad information on engineering and geology, Flint, tested illegally on humans with possibly lethal experiments on those they exploited that were willing to undergo such experiments for 12 bucks an hour.
Science and bureaucracy are a TERRIBLE mix even if you don’t mention the inherent echo chamberism at the EPA from years of recruiting only like minded people.
Ideologically inbred thoughts lead to retarded ideas, retarded in actual meaning of the word, not the slang meaning
“the peer review process, which remains the gold standard of academic achievement.”
I suppose she really meant the gilt standard. As in gold-plated crap.
The fool’s gold standard is more like it.
“We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!” (Douglas Adams – The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy).
On behalf of 60000 members? Really? Is he prepared to put that assertion to the test with a ballot?
Well I am confused, so I try to translate that letter for myself, I need some help with newspeek… Do I correctly understand they want the: ‘trust us, we are scientists and we say so’ instead of the: ‘here is the data, you can check yourself’?
“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”
‘exclude data’? What data is excluded? Was it not about making it available? Was it not about basing decisions only on studies with publicly available data?
So they mean exclude results based on ‘trust us’ data? Hm?
“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.”
Good, they do not say anything directly against making the data available, as this should be the basis of any scientific work.
“However, it is critical that such scientific information undergo the peer review process, which remains the gold standard of academic achievement. “
However? What however? Make the data available.
How is the peer review process impeded when the data has to be made available? Is it that anybody could judge the process not only the peers? Or what else could be the problem?
“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.”
Yeah, still where is the problem to make the data available? Yes you want the peer review process, and the data? Give us the data, make it available to the public for public decisions. What the heck?
“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”
What secret policy? It is out in the open?
Would cost? Whom would it cost? The taxpayers? It does not seem to be the case?
Do they mean there are between 5 to 250 million annually money grants for studies where the data is secret? Do they really mean it would cost ‘the scientists’ so much money they do not receive? Or what? How can it cost them if they do not pay it?
“Of additional concern to AGU are reports that EPA has directed its employees to use talking points regarding climate change “
Oh! It is about climate change?
“… 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.””
Oh, it is about the climate change consensus, the settled science and the flow of grant money…
“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. “
Yeah, make that data publicly available and base policies only on studies with publicly available data. What the heck?
YES
Lars your last point :
“Yeah, make that data publicly available and base policies only on studies with publicly available data.”
YES ! AND MAKE IT AVAILABLE IN “STRAIGHT-FORWARD-LANGUAGE” so that everyone can
understand it……………..ESPECIALLY as KRISTI has pointed out to us ….. THAT EVEN THE SCIENTISTS
CAN’T UNDERSTAND ONE ANOTHER’S RESEARCH !
WOW ! Such OPACITY ! Such SECRECY !
WELL DONE MR PRUITT.
You missed the most important point. Peer reviewers who pass a paper may very well be upstaged by some deplorable person out in the great mass of unwashed people who discover errors in the published paper.
Who would want to be a reviewer in that situation. This whole thing is more about retaining a publishing empire with pal reviewers than getting correct information into the world.
Early in my career I worked for a pathologist. He used a lot of physician’s axioms. This one has so much rich meaning for health of both the body and for management of complex organizations: obstruction begets infection.
Whenever a person can obstruct lines of reporting and thereby obstruct transparency of their activities it becomes easy for their performance to become more about private goals rather than the public goals of the organization.
Of any government agency, the EPA has succeeded in obstruction of oversight and is full of employees who are motivated by their ow self-righteous policy goals. Anytime data that is used to justify policy (having the weight of law) or procedures used to analyze such data, is kept private only bad things happen. The first casualty is public support for the rule of law, especially when officials can make gross mistakes with impunity. Laws and sound scientific research are only for the little people.
Dear Christine McEntee,
I acted swiftly on your letter.
Cheers!
Scott P.
This is clearly anti science. How can the science be independnently tested, the first test of any science that claims validity? Science that does not offer proof of its predictions is a religion, it’s scientists priests.
The sky is falling, the Messiah is coming, the end of the world is nigh, at a time well beyond that you have to pay up to save the world.
There s no data thats make any of this probable fact in terms of correlation of supposed causes and the absolute level of change versus known global patterns. The assertion is false,
It is a greater give away that the laws enacted by the state on the basis of this secretive religion for the profit of easy profit of renewable energy lobbyists and the careers of people like this high preist must make the supposed problems expensively worse in physics 101 as costed engineering fact.
Christine McEnte is clearly NOT a scientist, as she doesn’t understand the most fundamental test of scientific method, Independnent validation. Mann’ish religious science is good enough. Because they say so, it’s true, so you must believe the problem is real and caused as we guess, and pay for the snake oil we sell as a cure.No thanks.
AS far as the snake oil of renewable energy subsidies, this is actual provable malfeasance in science fact, and the people should sue their government for it. The measures amke CO2 emissions expensively worse by law, unsustainably.
Promoting laws that cannot deliver their promise of preventing an exagerated effect in science fact, based on increasingly unravelling predictions of a very unproven and ultimately unprovable prediction (the basis of religion) , using wholly inadequate models that apply presumptive science rather than test the real possibilities even handedly, that then clearly fails to predict what happens in the natural world but is still preferred by the priests,, so we must spend more on it, is obviously broken, is at the civilisation level of the Moche pyramids. Building more will not change the change, they had to move elsewhere, as will we as the ice comes. Building renewables has no usefu effect on actual climate change, or even CO2 levels come to that, versus gas and nuclear which works, but has no easy “climate change” subidisies.
We face a state run climate change protection racket, supported by the false prophets of the EPA, not behaving as scientists even if they were trained that way. Supporting proven science denying laws that enrich insiders at public expense to the profit of the priests and their paymasters. laws that charge us to counter a threat re CO2 the EPA can never prove, because it isn’t real as advertised, by enforcing subsidised solutions that cannot deliver the improvements claimed on the science fact, and instead making the problems of energy expensively worse than preferring the unsubsidised and superior alternatives.
No wonder the EPA priesthood are worried, someone with power wants to make them prove their consensus “science”, and explain why it doesn’t represent nature, and inded exludes nature it would rather pretend CO2 was responsible for. When it increasingly obviosuly isn’t in science fact.
Tell the people who pay us the truth? Surely not. How rude. Can’t tell the people the truth, or the whole climate science scam collapses, and exposes the corruption behind it, both Intellectual and fiscal. Time to run these deceitful charlatans out of Washington, and anywhere else they have been given power by the state. Have an EPA, but replace the charlatans with real scientists without agendas, and ensure external peer review and independent validation of ALL their science is possible, if not always enacted…
These people have no shame. Quacks and carpetbaggers masquerading as scientists in order to secure the almighty cash flow.
How in the hell is this swamp thing leading AGU? A freaking background in nursing and crony management, this is disgraceful for AGU. Not a single thing she states should be supported by the geological community, and she should be roundly fired from her post, immediately!
Amazing. How can a supposedly science-based org protest a requirement of using ‘publicly available’ data? How does outside verification happen without it? Rhetorical questions of course…..
…..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…..
Here in the UK Poundland is a chain offering cheap commercial products as the name implies for a Pound.
these products are bought from suppliers who still have to go through a reasonable Quality assurance program for the products.
Peer review passes data used by the climate scientists which Poundland would find totally unacceptable as inadequately tested against reference instruments in an environment that is totally uncontrolled.
Given the claims for the importance of climate legislation I feel that life critical QA standards should be applied not mere commercial ones.
The EPA letter reminds me of a high-school sophomore’s letter to the Principal — complaining about new scholastic requirements (like actually learning to read and write) and then collapsing into a further complaint about the dress code and the ugly ties the Principal insists on wearing.
Remarkable childish.
Follow the money. Would you want to be a reviewer passing on a paper when you could be proven stupid by someone out in WUWT land? What do you think will happen with the publishing empires? I can foresee peer review organizations becoming much, much smaller even though they may become better. Smaller -> less money!
Under eight years of Democrats the EPA became a lobbyist playground . Lobbyist’s in favor
got paid to write EPA policy while keeping their hands in the tax payer cookie jar .
Scott Pruitt is bound to offend those who have been cut off the gravy train . And the loss of those
parties too . Very upsetting .
If there is nothing to hide, then letting the public review the data should not be a difficult decision.
“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”
Ok, so if the data is so strong and growing all the time, then there should be no problem releasing it for public scrutiny. However, if the data isn’t as strong or as growing as the “trust us” crowd claims that I can see why they’d want to keep it hidden (like the infamous decline). The light of public scrutiny is the bane of charlatans everywhere.
“…implementing a secret science policy like the one proposed by EPA”
///////////////////////////////////////
Huh? They are getting rid of the secret science. I’m confused.
///////////////////////////////////////
‘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.”’
///////////////////////////////////////
Seems pretty reasonable to me.