Congress Subpoenas EPA Studies

Lost in the news coming out of Washington in the past week was a little report that the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology issued a subpoena requiring the EPA to hand over the data from two scientific studies, which provide the basis for most of its air quality regulations. Probably what is most remarkable about the story is that the EPA had to be forced by subpoena to release data that should be shared freely not only with Congress but with the general public. By now the public should have had its fill of secret science. The UN's IPPC which claims the exclusive right to speak ex cathedra on climate change has, for years, suppressed the actual studies from which its conclusions are drawn.
Almost all of the EPA's rationale for regulating particle emission into the atmosphere is based on just two studies, the Harvard Six Cities Study (HSCS) and the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Prevention Study II (CPS II).  Both studies were initiated in the 1980s and both linked individual information on cohort members to air pollution data obtained from monitoring stations.  The HSCS enrolled 8,111 adults in 6 US cities and followed the cohort for 14-16 years.  The CPS II used data on roughly 500,000 adults for whom air pollution data for metropolitan areas throughout the US was available and followed the cohort for 16 years.
Both studies found a correlation between high levels of air pollution and and mortality but the correlation was weak. Also the reports tended to ignore findings that did not confirm their view. Recently two statisticians, Stanley Young and Jesse Xia of the National Institute for Statistical Sciences have questioned the accuracy of the studies. The studies did not take into account other factors such as smoking, obesity, income levels, all three of which are known to effect mortality. It is one thing to discover a correlation and another to prove causality. What if below a certain point the particle matter in the air does not have a significant impact on mortality? Then the nation is spending billions of dollars annually to mitigate a non problem.
When congress asked to see the EPA's actual data as opposed to the summaries the EPA publishes it got a "trust us" response similar to the IPPC or the NSA. Not surprisingly the subpoena was a straight party line vote. There is much at steak here. If the National Institute for Statistical Sciences or the National Academy of Science were to find that the studies did not prove that EPA air quality standards improved health the courts will be crowed with litigants seeking an end to much regulation and the plaintiffs would probably prevail.