Republicans Want to Make the EPA Great Again by Gutting Health Regulations (with lots of tobacco ties)

Sharon Lerner just posted a great story on efforts to redefine science to make issuing health regulations almost impossible.  The people involved have lots of tobacco ties. 
 
A couple paragraphs at the start of her story sum up the situation:
 

On Tuesday, the House Committee on Science Science, Space, and Technology is expected to hold a hearing on a bill to undermine health regulations that is based on a strategy cooked up by tobacco industry strategists more than two decades ago. At what Republicans on the committee have dubbed the “Making EPA Great Again” hearing, lawmakers are likely to discuss “The Secret Science Reform Act,” a bill that would limit the EPA to using only data that can be replicated or made available for “independent analysis.”
 
The proposal may sound reasonable enough at first. But because health research often contains confidential personal information that is illegal to share, the bill would prevent the EPA from using many of the best scientific studies. It would also prohibit using studies of one-time events, such as the Gulf oil spill or the effect of a partial ban of chlorpyrifos on children, which fueled the EPA’s decision to eliminate all agricultural uses of the pesticide, because these events — and thus the studies of them — can’t be repeated. Although it is nominally about transparency, the bill leaves intact protections that allow industry to keep much of its own inner workings and skewed research secret from the public, while delegitimizing studies done by researchers with no vested interest in their outcome.

 
Check her story out at https://theintercept.com/2017/02/05/republicans-want-to-make-the-epa-great-again-by-gutting-health-regulations/
 
Here are four papers by us and others that are also relevant:
 
Constructing "sound science" and "good epidemiology": tobacco, lawyers, and public relations firms
‘To quarterback behind the scenes, third-party efforts’: the tobacco industry and the Tea Party
The tobacco industry and the Data Quality Act
Legislating "sound science": the role of the tobacco industry