This week, ATS submitted comments on the EPA’s revised transparency rule proposal – a rule to require the public release of all underlying data that EPA uses in developing environmental policy. The supplemental proposed rule significantly expands the scope of the earlier proposed rule to cover all “influential science” used by the agency. Under the proposed policy, EPA would either not consider studies that fail to meet the public data sharing requirement or discount any studies that don’t publicly share data.

The ATS continues to have strong concerns with the proposed rule, including whether EPA has statutory authority to implement such a rule; who will pay for the public posting and housing of data; how patient privacy will be ensured with the public release of data; the potential burden release of the data will place on researchers; and the discretion that the Administration has to exempt selected studies from the data sharing requirement.