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House Panel Subpoenas EPA for Air Pollution Data
ScienceInsider ^ | 2013-08-02 | Kelly Servick

Posted on 08/05/2013 12:30:54 PM PDT by neverdem

U.S. Committee on Science, Space and Technology

Hand it over. Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), chairman of the House science committee, signs a subpoena ordering the Environmental Protection Agency to hand over sensitive health data.

In a rare step, the science committee of the U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to subpoena the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for data from key studies used to justify air pollution regulations.

Following a heated exchange of letters between Committee Chair Lamar Smith (R-TX) and ranking member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), the committee approved its first subpoena in 21 years. The vote was strictly along party lines, with Democrats opposing the measure.

The information in question includes the underlying data in a 1993 paper considered to be groundbreaking work on the impact of air pollution. In the so-called Six Cities Study, Harvard researchers followed more than 8000 participants for 14 to 16 years and found an association between death rates and particulate matter, or soot, in the air. The study informed EPA’s 1997 decision to tighten its air quality standards and continues to underpin Clean Air Act regulations. Smith has repeatedly requested that EPA hand over raw data from the Six Cities Study and from a related (and much larger) American Cancer Society study known as “Cancer Prevention Study II,” plus all subsequent reanalysis of the studies. He accused the agency of using “secret science” to justify environmental regulations.

Smith gave EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy an ultimatum in a 22 July letter(PDF), threatening a subpoena if the information—which would include personal health information from study participants promised confidentiality—wasn’t turned over by the end of the month.

On Tuesday, Johnson responded to Smith’s subpoena threat with outrage. In her letter(PDF), she claimed that his evidence for questioning the validity of the studies was shoddy and that a subpoena would violate the trust of hundreds of thousands of Americans who had participated in the Six Cities Study and other research included in the subpoena. She demanded that Smith clarify who would receive the data and for what purpose.

In his response(PDF), the chairman acknowledged that the data would need to be “de-identified” to protect the privacy and health information of the participants.

Economist C. Arden Pope of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, one of the authors on the Six Cities Study, says that turning over what Smith requests would undoubtedly violate the confidentiality agreement made with participants. “It’s extremely hard to give a data set that will allow you to replicate the results in these studies that doesn’t include information that then allows you—with an Internet search of obituaries—to quickly figure out who the people were,” he says.

Smith also explained in his letter that he intended to share the data with “independent scientists for review.” But Johnson, in yesterday’s opening statement, accused Smith of intending to pass the data to “industry hacks” who would try to discredit the research for financial gain.

According to the subpoena that Smith signed following the vote, EPA now has until 19 August to turn over all relevant data. The agency has previously said it has provided Smith with all the relevant material that it has.



TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Extended News; Government
KEYWORDS: airpollution; envirofascism; epa; epaisajoke; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; junkscience; sixcitiesstudy

1 posted on 08/05/2013 12:30:54 PM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem
. . . she claimed that his evidence for questioning the validity of the studies was shoddy and that a subpoena would violate the trust of hundreds of thousands of Americans who had participated in the Six Cities Study

So says the representative of the administration, soon to be the custodian of the confidential health information on every American.

2 posted on 08/05/2013 12:35:22 PM PDT by Sgt_Schultze (A half-truth is a complete lie)
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To: neverdem

More pillow fighting from the Obamacare-exempt.


3 posted on 08/05/2013 12:43:37 PM PDT by ZULU ((See: http://gatesofvienna.net/) Obama, do you hear me?)
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To: neverdem

Executive Privilege.............


4 posted on 08/05/2013 12:44:12 PM PDT by Red Badger (Want to be surprised? Google your own name......Want to have fun? Google your friend's names........)
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To: neverdem

More corruption by one of the Federally funded government organized crime departments and agencies.


5 posted on 08/05/2013 12:44:14 PM PDT by RetiredTexasVet (The only growth industries left under Progressives are government and poverty.)
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To: neverdem

Data , Data , EPA don’t need no Data


6 posted on 08/05/2013 12:46:26 PM PDT by molson209 (Hillary Clinton)
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To: neverdem
Stand by for an EPA study on the Global Warming Environmental impact of an accidental burning of EPA records.

Sarc

7 posted on 08/05/2013 12:52:00 PM PDT by OldNavyVet
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To: Sgt_Schultze
"that a subpoena would violate the trust of hundreds of thousands of Americans who had participated in the Six Cities Study"

Were ALL of them Americans or were there some illegals tossed in?

Since those hundreds of thousands people are affecting my way of life, then I want to know who they are.

Chances are 100% of them are libs & dems that's why they're being protected.

8 posted on 08/05/2013 12:55:37 PM PDT by 1_Rain_Drop
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To: neverdem

If they don’t turn over the data I expect someone to go to jail for contempt of coiry. Ha, ha, ha, ha ha! Just kidding!


9 posted on 08/05/2013 1:05:52 PM PDT by subterfuge (CBS NBC ABC FOX AP-- all no different than Pravda.)
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To: subterfuge

“...contempt of COURT...”

Stupid phone.


10 posted on 08/05/2013 1:11:38 PM PDT by subterfuge (CBS NBC ABC FOX AP-- all no different than Pravda.)
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To: ZULU

Lamar Smith is my congressman, and this is a rural area, like a large part of his district-the EPA is not well liked by small farmers and ranchers-it raises the price of meat and produce by strangling the producers with BS regulations based on these “studies”. It needs to go totally away...


11 posted on 08/05/2013 1:13:11 PM PDT by Texan5 ("You've got to saddle up your boys, you've got to draw a hard line"...)
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To: Texan5
Totally agree. I'm just ticked off with nearly ALL Congressmen at this point. I like Cruz and I like Perry.

The just exempted themselves from Obamacare. They won't do anything to defund it. They have sat idle while Obama’s Home Police Force sucked dry the ammunition market so target shooters, hunters and even legitimate law enforcement can't get ammo. They are doing NOTHING to stop massive invasions across our borders. They continue to pussyfoot around Muslims while subjecting American citizens to disgraceful and inciting treatment. They ignore the persecution of Christians in Islamic Countries. They do nothing to stop the onerous taxation of the production half of America in order to fund the parasites who make up the rest of it.

I could go on and on about these guys.

Sure, every once in a while they toss us some sop to keep us happy.

But as long as we are stupid enough to allow them to get elected over and over again to the point that they regard themselves as a titled nobility and their elected offices as sinecures they hold as nearly a birthright, they will continue to treat us like peasants.

12 posted on 08/05/2013 1:22:58 PM PDT by ZULU ((See: http://gatesofvienna.net/) Obama, do you hear me?)
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To: ZULU

The just exempted themselves from Obamacare.

I think you are incorrect in that assumption. Seems that nobama did this by fiat and with the intent to smear conservative Congress-people by implication.


13 posted on 08/05/2013 1:39:45 PM PDT by X-spurt (Ready for the CRUZ missle.)
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To: neverdem
I already know how much creedence to give to EPA Air Pollution data. When an official air quality monitor was placed in a nearby ‘small city’, they chose to locate it INSIDE THE PARKING GARAGE!!! Since there was only 1 (or maybe 2) parking garages in town, and it isn’t a real ‘high-rise’ town, it was clearly not representative of the average breathers experience. Nonetheless, it was apparently sufficient to get us on the list of counties that have to have vehicle emissions checks as well as vehicle safety checks...
14 posted on 08/05/2013 1:40:46 PM PDT by Kay Ludlow (Government actions ALWAYS have unintended consequences...)
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To: ZULU

I’ve been all for Perry-and any other governor who wants to-to tell anyone with a lonestar (EBT) card that the service is discontinued here and they have to leave the state if they want one. I think the leeches would go someplace like California.

That would put a lot of working liberals out of their useless state jobs, save the state a lot of money and maybe they would leave for some place like Seattle or SanFran, too. Then there might be enough jobs for folks who really want to work-between gas prices so high tourists can’t get here and the Obama economy, rural areas are hurting worse than cities...


15 posted on 08/05/2013 1:41:11 PM PDT by Texan5 ("You've got to saddle up your boys, you've got to draw a hard line"...)
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To: Kay Ludlow

That post is enough to make my head explode...


16 posted on 08/05/2013 1:43:19 PM PDT by Texan5 ("You've got to saddle up your boys, you've got to draw a hard line"...)
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To: neverdem

The vote was strictly along party lines, with Democrats opposing the measure.


17 posted on 08/05/2013 2:17:42 PM PDT by Democrat_media (IRS rigged election for Obama and democrats by shutting down tea party)
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To: Sgt_Schultze

“. . . she claimed that his evidence for questioning the validity of the studies was shoddy and that a subpoena would violate the trust of hundreds of thousands of Americans who had participated in the Six Cities Study...”

PROOF that the study was not valid; obviously, no TEA party members were included in the study; they would cough THAT data up no problemo...


18 posted on 08/05/2013 3:30:29 PM PDT by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.")
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To: ZULU

Are y’all pissed off enough?


19 posted on 08/05/2013 4:08:31 PM PDT by upchuck (To the faceless, jack-booted government bureaucrat who just scanned this post: SCREW YOU!)
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To: upchuck

Not enough apparently. His ratings still aren’t in the gutter where they belong.


20 posted on 08/07/2013 6:13:05 AM PDT by ZULU ((See: http://gatesofvienna.net/) Obama, do you hear me?)
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