U.S. Chamber Calls on EPA to End Regulatory Environmental Modeling Secrecy

WASHINGTON, D.C.— The U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed comments with the Environmental Protection Agency expressing strong concern about its Guidance Document on the Development, Evaluation, and Application of Regulatory Environmental Models. William Kovacs, the Chamber's Vice President of Environment, Technology, and Regulatory Affairs offered the following statement:

"The public is not well served when the EPA continues to use public funds to develop proprietary models, a practice that fuels public skepticism and mistrust.

"This practice should be abandoned, and the Guidance Document should make this point unambiguously clear. If this is not done, EPA staff will be lead to believe that it is okay to continue to fund the development of proprietary models with public funds and EPA staff will continue to do so, thereby perpetuating the vicious cycle of modeling secrecy that has caused so much public doubt about the integrity of the modeling process."

The U.S. Chamber is the world's largest business federation, representing more than 3 million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, and region.

The letter can be viewed at:

www.uschamber.comhttp://www.uschamber.com/issues/comments/2008/080910_epa_env_models.htm

www.uschamber.com

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