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EDGI Urges EPA to Withdraw its Ill-Conceived ‘Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science’ Proposed Rule

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The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI) has submitted a public comment on the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (SNPRM) regarding its proposed Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science rule (STRS), Docket number EPA-HQ-OA-2019-0259-9322. We welcome you to read and draw material from the comment we submitted and urge you to submit a comment as well. The deadline for comments is May 18, 2020.

The EPA’s original 2018 proposal for the STRS rule represented a sweeping proposition to upend the use of science in the EPA’s regulatory developments and decisions. The STRS would require that data and models underlying scientific studies that are pivotal to regulatory action be available to the public, and “dose response data and models” used in regulatory decision-making available for independent validation. The proposed rule states that that would ensure that EPA relied on “best available science” that “enhance the public’s ability to understand and meaningfully participate in the regulatory process.” EDGI’s 2018 public comment on the proposed rule details its problematic ambiguity and misappropriation of transparency to stymie science-based regulations intended to protect human and environmental health…

An Embattled Landscape, Part 2b: The Declining Capacity of Federal Environmental Science

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An Embattled Landscape, Part 2b: The Declining Capacity of Federal Environmental Science

Over the past three and a half years, the Trump administration has engaged in a historically unprecedented campaign to shrink our government’s capacity for reliable, professionally vetted environmental knowledge. The most draconian statements of its vision have come in its annual proposals for budget cuts. Though these cuts have been repeatedly rejected by Congress, Trump political appointees have succeeded in significantly shrinking resources and personnel devoted to environmental sciences within the executive branch. This downsizing, done by means outside of Congressional control and underneath judicial and media radars, has left deep and debilitating scars on the scope and capabilities of federal environmental science, which will likely take years to repair. Our diminished capacity to understand the environments that surround us has corroded our government’s ability to protect our nation’s ecology and public health, leaving both more vulnerable.

EDGI is hiring! Paid Summer Research Internships

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EDGI is hiring! Paid Summer Research Internships

EDGI is hiring summer research interns to assist in coordinating a public online research project investigating patterns in violations of federal environmental regulations and enforcement of environmental laws. Coordinators will help organize online public events, share the results and process of these events over social media as well as record and analyze the results of … Read more

EDGI is Hiring! Interview Curator and Research Assistantships

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EDGI is Hiring! Interview Curator and Research Assistantships

The Policy Monitoring/Interviewing Working Group of the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative is seeking to fill a part-time Interview Curator position as well as part-time Research Assistantship positions to help out with on-going studies of the “The EPA in the Age of Trump.” (More information on our work is available at https://envirodatagov.org/interviewing/) We are looking … Read more

EPA’s COVID-19 Leniency is a Free Pass to Pollute

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EPA’s COVID-19 Leniency is a Free Pass to Pollute

Contributors: Kelsey Breseman, Eric Nost, Gretchen Gehrke, Chris Sellers, Marcy Beck, Lourdes Vera, EDGI On March 26, 2020 EPA released a memo suspending permit enforcement for industries that claim to have been impacted by COVID-19. This memo has already rightly been called out as an unprecedented relinquishment of power (see: The Intercept, The Hill, The … Read more

Collaborative Authorship: EDGI’s Values-First Approach to Attribution

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Collaborative Authorship: EDGI’s Values-First Approach to Attribution

By Kelsey Breseman, Stephanie Knutson, EDGI One of this year’s initiatives for EDGI’s working group on organizational structure is to more publicly share some of our organization’s modes of work, adding to a growing conversation around remote work, collaboration, and non-hierarchical decision-making. For this reason, we’d like to share EDGI’s Authorship Protocol. EDGI’s work developing … Read more

EDGI’s Take on Proposed Revisions Undercutting the Migratory Bird Treaty Act

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EDGI’s Take on Proposed Revisions Undercutting the Migratory Bird Treaty Act

Photo: Jeffrey Hamilton By Marcy Beck, Gretchen Gehrke, and Aaron Lemelin EDGI welcomed the opportunity to comment on​ the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Proposed Rule: Migratory Bird Permits; Regulations Governing Take of Migratory Birds (Docket No. FWS-HQ-MB-2018-0090) in March 2020. This rule would narrow the scope of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) … Read more

An Embattled Landscape, Part 2a: Coronavirus and the Three-Year Trump Quest to Slash Science at the CDC

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An Embattled Landscape, Part 2a: Coronavirus and the Three-Year Trump Quest to Slash Science at the CDC

Computer generated COVID-19 Coronavirus particle By Christopher Sellers, Leif Fredrickson, Alissa Cordner, Kelsey Breseman, Eric Nost, Kelly Wilkins, and EDGI Executive Summary The administration of President Donald Trump has repeatedly undermined science-based policy as well as research that protects public health. That undermining has eroded our government’s capacity to respond to the coronavirus — from … Read more

EDGI/EHAC Critiques Trump Admin’s Efforts to Weaken the National Environmental Policy Act

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EDGI/EHAC Critiques Trump Admin’s Efforts to Weaken the National Environmental Policy Act

In January 2020, the Trump administration proposed dramatic regulatory changes that, if instituted, will undermine one of the nation’s most effective environmental laws, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The Act, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, is a cornerstone of the laws and regulations put into place in the 1970s to protect the environment … Read more

EDGI Coauthors Data Risk Categorization Paper with ESIP

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EDGI Coauthors Data Risk Categorization Paper with ESIP

By: Kelsey Breseman, EDGI The Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) formed as an emergency effort to ensure public climate data stayed available in 2016, when it designed and organized 48 “Data Rescue” events together with the University of Pennsylvania where volunteers and activists saved 200 Terabytes of government data (EDGI 2018). These events prompted … Read more