Scott Pruitt has signed a proposed rule banning “secret science” from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The EPA reports:

The rule will ensure that the regulatory science underlying Agency actions is fully transparent, and that underlying scientific information is publicly available in a manner sufficient for independent validation. “The era of secret science at EPA is coming to an end,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. “The ability to test, authenticate, and reproduce scientific findings is vital for the integrity of rulemaking process. Americans deserve to assess the legitimacy of the science underpinning EPA decisions that may impact their lives.”

This represents a massive victory for both Pruitt and President Trump in their war on the Green Blob. It’s a victory too for the taxpayer and for free markets.

It means that if this or any future administration in the U.S. wishes to create new environmental policy it must do so on the basis of science which is credible and reproducible and independently verifiable. No longer can policy be slipped through the system on the say-so of a cabal of eco-activists whose “science” is to be taken on trust.

Among the first to congratulate Pruitt on the new measure was lawyer, author, and ex-coal executive Steve Milloy. He has been campaigning for more than 20 years for this shift in EPA policy.

YUGE: Scott Pruitt proposes to end junk science via transparency at EPA https://t.co/fC08QMpk7n pic.twitter.com/WSISqshENa — Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) April 24, 2018

He said in a statement:

“During the Obama administration, the EPA wantonly destroyed 94 percent of the market value of the coal industry, killed thousands of coal mining jobs and wreaked havoc on coal mining families and communities all based on data the EPA and its taxpayer-funded university researchers have been hiding from the public and Congress for more than 20 years.”

Few people have a better understanding than Milloy of the EPA’s misuse of science to promote a hard-left, anti-growth political agenda.

EPA secret science was used as the basis for the Obama administration’s clean air regulations. But as Milloy demonstrated at length in his book Scare Pollution: Why and How to Fix the EPA, the evidence for this science simply didn’t stack up – so hugely expensive and debilitating policy was being imposed on business and consumers for no good reason.

The environmental left has greeted Pruitt’s move with impotent fury.

Because, obviously, it cannot be seen publicly to be opposing transparent, reproducible science, it is instead attempting to rebrand Pruitt’s move as a war on science generally.

Pruitt signs order to limit use of science at EPA https://t.co/15AwpuI2GB pic.twitter.com/YRpfuw14V8 — The Hill (@thehill) April 24, 2018

Or, in the case of the Washington Post, it is misrepresenting the parti-pris, activist-driven, secret science so frequently abused by the Obama-era EPA as “independent science.”

As Milloy explains here, that science was not remotely “independent”.