When Scott Pruitt moved to limit what he’s called “secret science” at the EPA on Tuesday, his agency explained that most major scientific journals go by the same standard.

They don't, the publications specifically cited by the EPA told VICE News.

In the interest of transparency, Pruitt announced new restrictions on the science the EPA can use to craft its policies on Tuesday (with no major media outlets present): Studies that don’t make all of their raw data publicly available won’t be used. Pruitt said the new rule was intended to make the science “transparent” and “reproducible,” but experts worry the policy will limit the amount of information, especially about health, that comes through the EPA’s door.

“The proposal is consistent with data access requirements for major scientific journals like Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,” the EPA said in a follow-up press release after Pruitt’s announcement.

Those major scientific journals, however, pushed back. All of the journals the EPA cited subscribe to the same set of transparency standards, which require data to be made public when possible — and when that’s not possible, to disclose why. Any reputable scientific study is also peer-reviewed to ensure that it’s sound. But making the raw data public isn’t a hard and fast requirement for publication of research in any of the journals.

“In not every case can all data be fully shared,” Science editor-in-chief Jeremy Berg said in a statement to VICE News. “Excluding studies that do not meet rigid transparency standards will adversely affect decision-making processes.”

In particular, studies that rely on medical records — which are by law confidential — like those that analyze the effect of a particular chemical on a person’s health, would no longer be available to the EPA under Pruitt’s new rule.

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) also said that conditions exist under which not all of its raw data involved in a study can be shared.

“Under special circumstances, including privacy concerns, where all the data underlying an article cannot be shared or published, the Editorial Board determines whether flexibility is warranted,” PNAS told VICE News in an email.

The last publication cited by the EPA, Nature, adheres to the same standard.

“Any restrictions on data access — owing to privacy concerns, for example, or to proprietary interests – must be noted in the paper,” a Nature spokesperson told VICE News.

The EPA pointed VICE News to these publications’ websites, which do stress that data should be available to researchers — but not necessarily to the public. Nature and Science’s websites, for example, provide qualifications about when and how data should be made public. PNAS’s website indicates that all data should be made public, though in an email to VICE News, the journal qualified that language.

“The proposed rule is in line with the scientific community’s moves toward increased data sharing to address the 'replication crisis,' in which a significant proportion of published research may be false or not reproducible,” an EPA spokesperson told VICE News, reiterating the press release issued on Tuesday.

But public health and environmental advocacy groups have already sounded the alarm about the new “secret science” rule.

“It seems to be targeted at science that's already been through reviews,” Janice Nolen, an assistant vice president for national policy at the American Lung Association told VICE News. "Research that has gone through review and has been found to be solid.”

And Former EPA chief, Gina McCarthy, who served under Barack Obama, penned an op-ed in the New York Times outlining how restricting the science the EPA can use would paralyze the agency.

But this doesn’t appear to be a partisan issue. Christine Todd Whitman, who served as George W. Bush’s head of the EPA, told VICE News the decision would hamper the agency’s ability to review the science necessary to do its job protecting the public health.

“For those industries that are polluting now and don't want to deal with air or water regulations, they're going to be very happy with this,” Whitman told VICE News. “It's just one more nail in the coffin of science on the part of this administration.”