Scott Pruitt will continue destroying our climate right up until he's fired.

The Washington Post reports that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is proposing a new rule that would be a sweeping change in how scientific studies are used (or excluded from use) in forming policy on climate change.

This new rule would only allow the EPA to consider scientific studies "for which the underlying data are made available publicly."   This is being sold as an advance in transparency, but critics point out that it will block the use of many long-standing, landmark studies linking air pollution and pesticide exposure to harmful effects on human health.  Not because the authors of those studies are trying to conceal anything;   it just was not considered before now to be part of published studies unless it was relevant.

What a load of BS.    Scott Pruitt doesn't care about transparency;   since when did he begin to think that the public wants to be able to comb over the methodology or the data on the subjects behind scientific analysis?

No, this is nothing more than another way this corrupt man has found to try to eliminate any scientific advances that protect our environment, if it costs the industry that needs regulating.   Let me explain.

When you do a large study that involves human subjects, certain amounts of demographic data are collected on subjects of the study so that study subjects and control subjects can be matched with rough equivalence on a number of those demographic data, such as age, urban vs rural environment, health issues, etc.  But only on data relevant to the study.

The study's methodology, including how well these groups are matched, is evaluated by editors of journals before publication, or by supervisors who oversee studies done with grant money.   These are the scientific world's guarantors of the soundness of the methodology.   It's not ordinarily something the public -- and especially politicians -- care to look at.

Only now that we are so divided politically does this become an issue;   not because either side has suddenly become scientific but because we no longer trust each other.   What Pruitt and his ilk do not understand is that, until recently, science stood above all that and could be trusted (although now even that is breaking down as the academy has become tainted by money and politics).

Even so, it can't be that Pruitt is genuinely mistrustful of science done 30 years ago.  He's manipulating public opinion to sow distrust in the public for political purposes.   He's casting doubt on the long-accepted, landmark studies that have formed the basis for our scientific approach to efforts to combat the pollution that is affecting our climate, the purity of our water and air, and the future geography of our national shores.

Pruitt piously declared in a New York radio interview:  "That's transparency.  It gives people the opportunity in real time to peer review.  It goes to the heart of what we should be about as an agency."

A number of scientists have said that such a requirement, going far beyond what peer-reviewed journals require, "will limit the information the EPA can take into account when setting federal limits on everything from power-plant emissions to which chemicals can be used in agriculture and in homes."   A group of 985 scientists signed a letter organized by the Union. of Concerned Scientists urging Pruitt not to go ahead with this policy change.

Their letter states:   "There are ways to improve transparency in the decision-making process, but restricting the use of science would improve neither transparency nor the quality of EPA decision-making.   If fully implemented, this proposal would greatly weaken EPA's ability to comprehensively consider the scientific evidence across the full array of health studies."

Right.  And that is exactly Pruitt's purpose:  to weaken EPS's ability to consider scientific evidence.  Make no mistake about that.   This man is corrupt through and through -- from his habits of excessive spending of government money on himself, to his sweetheart deals in buying expensive homes he could not afford in Oklahoma, to his misuse of his office to destroy the very purpose of the agency he leads.

You only need to consider another of his decisions early in his tenure at EPA.   He ruled that anyone who had received an EPA grant for their own scientific work could not serve on an EPA advisory board.   Yet, if he's so concerned about conflict of interest, then why did he fill these vacancies with representatives of the very industries that the EPA tries to regulate -- or did, before Scott Pruitt took charge.

Andrew Rosenberg, director to the Union of Concerned Scientists' Center for Science and Democracy, summed it up:  "First, they came after the agency's independent science advisers;  and now they're going after science itself.   What is transparent is the unabashed takeover of EPA leadership by individuals who have demonstrated disinterest in helping communities combat pollution by using the best available science."

Scott Pruitt is in the process of self-destructing, however.   Each day brings new revelations of his financial corruption -- not only now in Washington, but going back years in Oklahoma.    His former great champion and supporter, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) says that he had not known about any of Pruitt's financial and spending habits;  and he is now concerned and supports an investigation.  As do an increasing number of Republicans in congress.

Ralph