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March 22, 2017

Senate Bill Would Amend APA to Include TSCA Scientific Standards

Lynn L. Bergeson

On March 8, 2017, Senator James Lankford (R-OK) introduced S. 578, the “Better Evaluation of Science and Technology Act” or “BEST Act,” a bill that would amend title 5 of the United States Code, commonly referred to as the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), to “provide requirements for agency decision making based on science.”  Although the BEST Act does not refer to the recently amended Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), it is apparent that it plans to implement the same science standards stipulated in amended TSCA, for all federal agencies that use “scientific information” (which the bill does not define) in their rulemakings, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Section 2 of the BEST Act uses language quoted verbatim from TSCA Section 26, subsections (h) Scientific Standards, (i) Weight of Scientific Evidence, and (j) Availability of Information. 

S. 578 was one in a package of regulatory improvement bills that Lankford introduced on March 8, 2017, which his press release stated were “aimed at improving the federal rulemaking process so the final regulations work better for the American people.”  Lankford is a vocal critic of some agencies’ practices regarding scientific integrity, stating that “agencies occasionally use hidden science to support their regulatory decisions instead of transparent conclusions, data, and methods,” and that, instead, “Agencies should use the best available science that has been peer-reviewed by an independent third-party, make sure conclusions are verifiable and reproducible, and assure the data is transparent and publically available.”