What saved the EPA and its mission in the 1980s could help save it today, said Lindsey. Groups like EDGI are a big help, but the real life-savers are people within the agency who become whistleblowers. They can alert the public to ways that our protections are being eroded, as well as what kind of data is being sequestered offline.
Another challenge to the EPA that Lindsey discussed is the so-called HONEST Act, a piece of legislation that limits the kinds of scientific data that the EPA can use to enforce protections. The act would disallow any scientific papers whose data cannot be "reproduced," which basically includes all studies of toxic cleanup and contamination. We can't reproduce those events, and, therefore, any data about them would be disallowed by the HONEST Act. Essentially, the EPA would no longer be able to use any scientific studies that explore environmental disasters.
