Trump's science policies

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The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) latest rewrite of its science transparency rule may be even more restrictive than the last one, scientists say, expanding the reach of a rule that limits consideration of studies that don’t make their underlying data public. Spearheaded under former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt as an effort to battle “secret science,” critics said the effort would instead block the agency from considering landmark public health studies where researchers would be unable to share the confidential information of participants. A new version of the rule released late Tuesday walks back the original proposal, instead stating the agency will give preference to studies with public data rather than exclude those that don’t. But scientists said the way the new proposal broadens the type of research that would be impacted by the rule as well as how EPA relies on research make the new version even more dangerous for public health than its predecessor.

Experts warn EPA making 'secret science' rule more restrictive | TheHill

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Trump himself has a long history of defying mainstream scientific findings on the existence of climate change and the efficacy of vaccines, but his actions during the coronavirus pandemic have startled even his most vocal critics. The president falsely claimed Covid-19 would evaporate in the April sunshine, expressed bewilderment that a vaccine wasn’t imminent and pondered the merits of injecting disinfectant as a treatment. Trump has also repeatedly touted the benefits of hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug he says he himself has taken as a precaution despite evidence it can cause heart problems in some patients. The World Health Organization recently halted trials to see if the drug could treat Covid-19, citing safety fears.

From its inception, the Trump administration has handed leadership of federal agencies to figures who have represented polluting industries. Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, heads the Environmental Protection Agency, while David Bernhardt, another former energy lobbyist, is in charge of America’s public lands as secretary of the interior. The deregulatory zeal of these agencies, often in the face of scientific advice, has seen droves of scientists leave the government. In a January estimate, 20% of high-level scientific positions within the government are vacant, with long-term officials complaining of being sidelined or silenced.

But the administration has also increasingly shown willingness to ally itself with groups far more fringe than the standard class of lobbyist that inhabits Washington DC. The administration defended Trump’s use of hydroxychloroquine by pointing to supportive statements from the Association of Physicians and Surgeons, an outlier group that has questioned whether HIV causes Aids (it does), argued abortion causes breast cancer (it does not) and even alleged former president Barack Obama used hypnosis techniques to trick voters, especially Jewish people, into supporting him (there is no evidence of this).

In April, Trump unveiled advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that Americans should wear face masks to curb the spread of Covid-19, but has since echoed fringe rightwing views that masks are pointless or somehow unmanly. The president said on Tuesday it was “very unusual” that Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, was seen wearing a mask, calling its use “politically correct”. “The elevation of fringe views is even more vivid with coronavirus, the impacts are more evident,” said Goldman. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has aligned itself with an anti-abortion lobbying group called the Center for Family and Human Rights, helping spread its message to the UN, while Trump’s own spiritual adviser Paula White has said she hopes abortion laws are overturned, declaring on a video that emerged in January: “We command any satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now!”

The pandemic has obscured a determined push by the Trump administration to further roll back regulations designed to prevent pollution and protect public health, with some of these efforts jarring uncomfortably with the federal government’s own analysis. For example, the administration is scaling back fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks, a process that has provoked a lawsuit from 23 aggrieved states and, according to a study of the EPA’s own figures, will cause an extra 18,500 deaths over the next three decades from air pollution, as well as $240bn more in extra fuel costs for Americans. “This administration is antithetical to science, there is an ideological mandate to roll back regulations. Facts and logic doesn’t matter, even the law doesn’t matter,” said Chris Frey, a a professor of environmental engineering at NC State University.

Frey was part of an EPA clean air advisory panel that was dismantled as part of a revamp that has seen agency panels filled with industry-aligned and fringe characters – including an official who has argued air pollution is good for public health – and the process of considering science rerouted to bypass a large body of research that links pollution to harm such as asthma and heart disease.

Scientists alarmed as Trump embraces fringe views and extreme theories amid pandemic | US news | The Guardian

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Federal scientists and regulators repeatedly complained they were sidelined by Donald Trump’s administration when they warned of risks to wildlife posed by a California water management plan, according to newly unveiled documents. The plan, finalized in late 2019, favored the former president’s political allies – farmers upset with environmental protections that kept them from receiving more irrigation water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the hub of California’s water network. A top California fisheries regulator questioned whether officials with the Trump administration were violating her agency’s “scientific integrity” policy and warned her boss that the administration’s methodology “definitely raises a flag”. A scientist said he feared “the pendulum was always going to swing in the favor of political decisions”. Another vowed to stand up for science even if “someone tries to bury it”.

These blunt exchanges are among 350 pages of emails, memos and meeting notes filed in federal court in Sacramento by California officials in December that provide evidence of political meddling in federal environmental regulation in California. They are part of a lawsuit from the state to overturn the Trump administration’s rewrite of rules for how California’s increasingly scarce water supplies are shared. The plan now could be overturned by the courts or by a review launched by President Joe Biden.

Trump’s California water plan troubled federal biologists. They were sidelined | California | The Guardian