American Airlines has warned in an employee memo that about 13,000 workers could be furloughed on April 1 when the latest payroll support from Congress is set to expire.

The Payroll Support Program (PSP), which was included in the CARES Act last March, was renewed through the end of March in the coronavirus relief package at the end of 2020. Initially, 19,000 American Airline employees were furloughed last year during stalled negotiations in Congress over the latest relief package.

“We are nearly five weeks into 2021, and unfortunately, we find ourselves in a situation similar to much of 2020,” Chief Executive Doug Parker and President Robert Isom said in a memo to employees, obtained by The Hill.

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“As we closed out last year with the successful extension of the Payroll Support Program (PSP), we fully believed that we would be looking at a summer schedule where we’d fly all of our airplanes and need the full strength of our team. Regrettably, that is no longer the case.”

American Airlines recalled the 19,000 workers who were furloughed last year when U.S. airlines received $15 billion in the $900 billion package, which extended the PSP for the industry. 

Parker and Isom said in the memo that vaccine distribution and international travel restrictions will prevent the airline from rebounding.

“The vaccine is not being distributed as quickly as any of us believed, and new restrictions on international travel that require customers to have a negative COVID-19 test have dampened demand,” they said.

American Airlines reported a net loss of $8.9 billion for 2020 attributed to the lack of travel during the coronavirus pandemic. It had a net loss of $2.2 billion in the fourth quarter of the year, and revenue was down 64 percent compared to the last three months of 2019.

Myanmar’s military has blocked access to Facebook in the wake of a coup earlier this week, according to multiple reports. 

Facebook users first reported service disruptions in the country late Wednesday.

The social media giant in a statement urged “authorities to restore connectivity so that people in Myanmar can communicate with family and friends and access important information,” The Associated Press reported.

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The move to block Facebook, a popular social media platform in Myanmar, comes amid worldwide condemnation of the coup.

Military officials instituted a state of emergency early Monday and arrested Aung San Suu Ky, the leader of the ruling party, and other democratically elected officials who were poised to open the first parliamentary session following the country’s November elections.

The military has called the elections fraudulent despite local and international observers finding that they were free and fair.

Approximately 70 elected lawmakers defied the military on Thursday by holding a symbolic meeting of the Parliament in Myanmar, the AP noted, adding that they signed their oaths of office at a government guesthouse in Naypyitaw, the nation’s capital.

Health care professionals across the country have also said that they will not work for the military government, even amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

However, thousands of people held a rally in Naypyitaw on Thursday to show support for the military.

President Biden’s administration on Tuesday declared that the military takeover in Myanmar was a coup, halting foreign aid and ordering a review of U.S. assistance to the country. 

The Hill has reached out to Facebook for comment. 

The biggest factor in the death rate from the first wave of coronavirus cases was international travel, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Aberdeen.

Researchers assessed death rates in the 37 hardest-hit countries, looking at factors including urban population, population density and arrivals at the border. Countries analyzed included the U.S., the U.K., Spain, France, Italy and Brazil.

According to the research, published in BMJ Open, each new one million international arrivals was associated with a 3.4 percent spike in the mean daily increase of deaths from the virus.

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“Our assessment of available data indicates that very early restrictions on international travel might have made a difference in the spread of pandemic in western Europe, including the UK,” co-author Tiberiu Pana said in a statement. “These findings are particularly important as the world looks to control future waves and strains of the COVID-19 pandemic and prevent related deaths.”

The data also indicate a country’s rates pf Bacillus Calmette–Guérin vaccination may also be associated with a reduction in death rates, Tiberiu said.

“Nevertheless, these associations were weaker and further work looking at individual patients is required to clarify these potential relationships,” he added.

The U.S. imposed restrictions on certain foreign nationals from China and some European nations early in the pandemic. President Biden last week signed a directive maintaining travel restrictions on most of Europe and Brazil and added South Africa to the list.

The first cases of new variations believed to have originated in South Africa and England have been identified in the U.S.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has announced stricter travel restrictions on arrivals from nations that have detected the South African strain. Sturgeon said that current plans by the British government to sequester high-risk arrivals in hotels was insufficient. Scottish officials will introduce a “much more comprehensive” approach to “managed quarantine” for such arrivals, she said, according to the BBC.

IBM on Thursday announced a $3 million grant program that is expected to go toward protecting K-12 schools against ransomware and other cyberattacks, which have increased significantly as classes moved to online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The grant program will be awarded to six public school districts across the U.S., with each district getting $500,000. School districts have until March 1 to apply for the grants. Six to 10 IBM volunteers will be deployed to each of these districts to help implement cybersecurity initiatives. 

“Schools will be awarded that grant and they will receive the contribution in the form of an in-kind funding through services performed by IBM’s service core teams,” Chris Scott, the director of Security of Innovation within IBM’s Office of the CISO, said during a virtual event hosted by IBM on Wednesday ahead of the announcement. “These volunteer services are going to be aimed at helping to improve school cybersecurity postures.”

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Scott said the services included implementing cybersecurity training, updating incident response plans, and improving coordination in the event of a cyberattack.

“Ransomware attacks on schools have become the new snow day for students,” Scott said in a separate statement. “Stay-at-home orders, and the switch to remote learning, have changed the focus for cybercriminals looking for easy targets as everyone from kindergartners to college professors have adopted remote technologies.”

Schools nationwide have faced a massive uptick in ransomware and other cyberattacks during the course of the pandemic, as cyber criminals have increasingly viewed online classes as an easy target for ransomware attacks. 

These attacks, which have also hit hospitals hard during the pandemic, involve the attacker encrypting a network and demanding payment to return access, with school districts faced with the choice of paying the fee or paying far more to replace their equipment and recover from the attack. 

“What are the hackers looking to gain? It’s really a simple one word answer: money,” Herbert Stapleton, the section chief of the FBI’s Cyber Division, said during the same Wednesday event. 

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The FBI has been involved in investigating cyberattacks on schools. In December, it put out a joint advisory with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warning that hackers were increasingly viewing online K-12 classes as “targets of opportunity.”

“This is just a blatantly financially motivated enterprise and there is not really a lot of concern on the part of the criminal actors about what the damage is, whether that’s damaging public schools or hospitals or any other sort of pieces of critical infrastructure of our society,” Stapleton said. 

IBM and Morning Consult also released a study in conjunction with the grants on the impact of cyberattacks on K-12 institutions over the past year. 

The study surveyed 1,000 educators and administrators and found that almost 60 percent were not sure they had ever received cyber training for the move to remote learning. More than half said their limited budgets was a barrier to instituting these trainings. 

Despite escalating cyberattacks — which negatively impacted classes in school districts in Miami-Dade County, Fla., Baltimore County, Md. and Fairfax County, Va. among many others over the past year — around half of those surveyed did not express concern over their own institutions being attacked. 

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“It’s a viable business model to collect what might be considered lower ransoms, certainly lower to the criminals, maybe not so much to the victims, they are trying to extract every last penny they can extract from the victims,” Stapleton warned on Wednesday. 

IBM is not the only group to address escalating cyberattacks. CISA announced a new public awareness campaign last month specifically focused on protecting K-12 institutions from ransomware attacks.

A coalition of cybersecurity and tech groups including Microsoft, FireEye, and McAfee have also banded together to form a ransomware task force to create a roadmap to help schools, hospitals, and other critical institutions defend against these attacks.

During his confirmation hearing on Wednesday, President Biden’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Michael ReganMichael ReganOVERNIGHT ENERGY: Senate committee advances Granholm nomination to lead Energy | EPA nominee Regan pledges ‘urgency’ on climate change at confirmation hearing | Omar calls on Biden to block pipeline being built in Minnesota EPA nominee Regan pledges ‘urgency’ on climate change at confirmation hearing Watch live: Senate holds confirmation hearing for EPA administrator nominee Michael Regan MORE, pledged to act with “a sense of urgency” on climate and to increase the agency’s focus on science, transparency and combating inequality. 

“Our priorities for the environment are clear. We will restore the role of science and transparency at EPA. We will support the dedicated and talented career officials. We will move with a sense of urgency on climate change, and we will stand up for environmental justice and equity,” Regan said in his opening statement. 

Regan was formerly the state of North Carolina’s top environmental regulator. If confirmed, he would be tasked with implementing a number of Biden’s campaign pledges, including reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

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He would also be coming into an agency that, under the prior administration, rolled back dozens of environmental protections that the Biden administration will likely seek to restore. 

During the hearing, Regan also said he would take action to clean up contamination from a class of cancer-linked chemicals called PFAS that can be found in drinking water and a variety of household products. 

He said he would pursue setting limits on how much of the chemicals facilities can spew into the air and water in response to questions from Sen. Kirsten GillibrandKirsten GillibrandOVERNIGHT ENERGY: Senate committee advances Granholm nomination to lead Energy | EPA nominee Regan pledges ‘urgency’ on climate change at confirmation hearing | Omar calls on Biden to block pipeline being built in Minnesota EPA nominee Regan pledges ‘urgency’ on climate change at confirmation hearing Overnight Defense: Biden lifts Trump’s transgender military ban | Democrats, advocates celebrate end of ban | 5,000 guardsmen staying in DC through mid-March MORE (D-N.Y.). 

Regan didn’t directly answer the senator’s question on whether he would set a standard for what constitutes a safe level of PFAS in drinking water.

“What I plan to do is sit down and spend some time with the staff at EPA, with our counsel, to understand the multiple avenues I believe we have at our fingertips,” he said.

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Asked by Sen. Shelley Moore CapitoShelley Wellons Moore CapitoOVERNIGHT ENERGY: Senate committee advances Granholm nomination to lead Energy | EPA nominee Regan pledges ‘urgency’ on climate change at confirmation hearing | Omar calls on Biden to block pipeline being built in Minnesota EPA nominee Regan pledges ‘urgency’ on climate change at confirmation hearing Psaki denies break between Biden and advisers on relief negotiations MORE (R-W.Va.) if the Biden administration would come up with a “new version” of an Obama-era regulation for emissions from coal-fired power plants, the nominee said he would operate with a “clean slate.”

The Obama administration’s plan for the major climate change regulation was stayed in court, while the Trump administration’s rollback of it was recently struck down. 

“There are lots and lots of, I would say, examples of success and failure that we’ve seen in past tries, and so I look forward to having an opportunity to do a few things,” Regan said. 

“Number one, to not look backwards but to look forward,” he added. “Number two, to convene all parties relevant to this discussion and think about how we harness the power and the statutory authority of the Clean Air Act in concert with major investments that we should see governmentwide and the input and the statements from those who will be impacted by any potential actions we take whether that be a rulemaking or whether that be voluntary.”

To take on inequality faced by marginalized communities on environmental issues, Regan said he would seek to have an environmental justice and equity adviser.

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Capito also pressed Regan on how he would interact with White House climate adviser Gina McCarthyGina McCarthyEPA nominee Regan pledges ‘urgency’ on climate change at confirmation hearing US cities undercount their emissions by 18 percent: study OVERNIGHT ENERGY: Biden signs series of orders to tackle climate change | Republicans press Granholm on fossil fuels during confirmation hearing MORE. Regan said he would report to Biden but would work with White House staff. 

The next step in the process would be a committee vote on whether to advance the nomination to the full Senate. 

While some Republicans in the committee pressed him on issues they had with Biden’s agenda, including his decision to revoke a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, Regan is also expected to have some bipartisan support. North Carolina’s two Republican senators, Richard BurrRichard Mauze BurrEPA nominee Regan pledges ‘urgency’ on climate change at confirmation hearing Democrats face tough odds in race for Ohio Senate seat Tim Ryan planning to declare run for Ohio Senate seat by March: NYT MORE and Thom TillisThomas (Thom) Roland TillisEPA nominee Regan pledges ‘urgency’ on climate change at confirmation hearing GOP courts Biden, who signals he might move without them The Hill’s 12:30 Report: Biden tests GOP negotiation skills in today’s COVID relief meeting MORE, endorsed him at the start of the hearing.

Sen. Amy KlobucharAmy KlobucharSenate panel advances Vilsack nomination to head Agriculture Dept. Lawmakers introduce legislation to massively expand mail-in voting Senators spar over validity of Trump impeachment trial MORE (D-Minn.) is set to introduce an ambitious bill Thursday aimed at strengthening competition laws and revamping antitrust enforcement.

The Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act combines a bevy of existing proposals into one omnibus bill that lays out Democrats’ strategy for tackling monopolization across the economy.

The first proposal of the lengthy legislation is focused on making anticompetitive mergers more difficult by amending the Clayton Act.

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It would add a risk-based standard to the foundational antitrust law and clarify that mergers that create a monopsony violate it.

The bill introduced by Klobuchar, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust, would also seek to shift the burden to parties seeking a merger to prove that they would not create a risk of lessening competition.

The legislation lists out several categories of mergers that would pose such a risk, including acquisitions by a dominant firm with 50 percent market share, acquisitions of disruptive firms by competitors and mega-merger transactions valued at $5 billion or more.

The other major proposal in the bill seeks to increase the effectiveness of the government’s two antitrust enforcers, the Justice Department’s antitrust division and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

It would add an additional $300 million to each group’s annual budget and authorize them to seek civil fines for competition violations.

Klobuchar’s bill also includes a bevy of other fixes, including creating an independent Competition Advocate at the FTC, eliminating the requirement that claimants almost always define a relevant market in order to establish liability in antitrust court cases and requiring studies by the FTC and Government Accountability Office on competition.

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The legislation, co-sponsored by Sens. Ed MarkeyEd MarkeyHouse Democrats press Biden over vaccine distribution for people of color Communities of color getting left behind in vaccine rollout Facebook hires first chief compliance officer amid regulatory scrutiny MORE (D-Mass.), Cory BookerCory BookerDemocrats offer resolution denouncing white supremacists ahead of Trump trial Senate Democrats say consideration of cannabis reforms will be a priority Hillicon Valley: Fallout from Reddit-driven stock rallies, GameStop purchase ban continues | Lawmakers grill NSA on years-old breach in the wake of massive Russian hack | Facebook reportedly considering antitrust lawsuit against Apple MORE (D-N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), faces long odds of passing in its entirety out of the Senate as long Republicans maintain filibuster power.

It does serve, however, as an opening salvo on a topic that has garnered increased interest recently, especially as the country’s biggest tech companies come under antitrust scrutiny.

Democrats in the House released a mammoth report last year on competition in digital marketplaces that argued Amazon, Apple, Google and Facebook are monopolies and offered a slate of reform proposals.

While the House Judiciary Committee report contained some more aggressive proposals like structural separation and prohibiting self-preferencing, many of the antitrust suggestions in it are also in Klobuchar’s bill.

Increasing the resources and authority for the Justice Department’s antitrust division and FTC could gain some extra steam given that both agencies are currently involved in cases against Big Tech companies.

The Justice Department sued Google last year for allegedly illegally maintaining its monopoly on search and online advertising.

The FTC sued Facebook shortly after for, among other things, making anticompetitive acquisitions in the social media space.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam SmithDavid (Adam) Adam SmithOvernight Defense: New START extended for five years | Austin orders ‘stand down’ to tackle extremism | Panel recommends Biden delay Afghanistan withdrawal Hillicon Valley: Federal cyber agency reevaluating role in countering election disinformation | Senate panel advances Biden’s Commerce secretary pick | House Armed Services panel establishes new cybersecurity panel House Armed Services panel establishes new cybersecurity subcommittee MORE (D-Wash.) and Rep. Jim LangevinJames (Jim) R. LangevinOvernight Defense: New START extended for five years | Austin orders ‘stand down’ to tackle extremism | Panel recommends Biden delay Afghanistan withdrawal Hillicon Valley: Federal cyber agency reevaluating role in countering election disinformation | Senate panel advances Biden’s Commerce secretary pick | House Armed Services panel establishes new cybersecurity panel House Armed Services panel establishes new cybersecurity subcommittee MORE (D-R.I.) on Wednesday announced the establishment of a new cybersecurity-focused subcommittee on the panel. 

Langevin will chair the new subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems, which will branch off from the current subcommittee on Intelligence and Emerging Threats and Capabilities, a panel Langevin previously chaired. 

The new subcommittee will have jurisdiction over issues including information technology, military science and technology programs, artificial intelligence programs, electronic warfare, computer software acquisition and other defense-focused cybersecurity topics. 

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Smith and Langevin both cited the need for a more focused cybersecurity panel following the inclusion of more than two dozen cybersecurity provisions in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), noting in a joint statement that the subcommittee would “focus more intently on these critical issues moving forward.”

“Over the last two years, the House Armed Services Committee has committed significant time and attention to cyber, emerging threats, and the future of warfare,” Smith and Langevin said. “While we are proud of what has already been accomplished, we considered how a more targeted focus could help us achieve even more objectives in the domain.”

“As technology continues to advance at an incredibly rapid rate — from artificial intelligence to biotechnology and everything in between — it is critical that the Armed Services Committee redoubles our efforts to bridge the gap between current capabilities and future requirements,” they added.

Langevin counts cybersecurity as one of his key areas of focus, and recently helped to negotiate the inclusion of the many cyber clauses in the NDAA, including the establishment of a national cyber director position at the White House.  

The announcement of the new cyber subcommittee comes as the federal government continues to grapple with the fallout from the discovery of the hacking incident involving IT group SolarWinds. 

The company had served many federal agencies as customers, with the Department of Defense among those compromised by an incident that U.S. intelligence officials have attributed to sophisticated Russian operatives taking place since 2019. 

The House Armed Services Committee’s new cybersecurity panel will be separate from the House Homeland Security Committee’s subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Innovation, which has jurisdiction over a much broader portion of federal cybersecurity issues outside of the Department of Defense.

The Navy on Wednesday released nearly 60 recommendations in an attempt to quell racial and gender-based discrimination among its sailors.

The final report of Task Force One Navy – which for six months has scrutinized systemic racism and discrimination in its ranks based on race, sexual orientation and identity, gender and religious beliefs – found that the service needs to do more to address hate speech and a lack of diversity among its top officials.

The report lays out 57 recommendations that span across recruiting, career development and retention, finding that existing efforts, “while admirable in many respects, clearly fell short of adequately addressing the societal challenges of today.”

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“We needed to seize this moment to engage in conversations about race, diversity and inclusion within our force more than ever before,” the report states. “We had to have open, honest and necessary conversations across our Navy and take action.”

The report’s release comes as the Pentagon looks to more widely root out white nationalists and other forms of racism and discrimination in the military. Defense Secretary Lloyd AustinLloyd AustinOvernight Defense: Pentagon chief ousts hundreds from advisory panels | Defense pick discusses Trump transition hurdles | Aircraft carrier returning home after 10-month deployment Aircraft carrier to return home after 10-month deployment monitoring Iran Defense secretary removes hundreds of advisory board members in sweeping review MORE, the first Black Pentagon chief, has pledged to “rid our ranks of racists and extremists, and to create a climate where everyone fit and willing has the opportunity to serve this country with dignity.”

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday stood up the task force last July to look for ways to remove racial barriers and improve inclusion in the service as well as dismantle barriers to advancement and equalize professional development opportunities.

The group was formed following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, which sparked nationwide protests and demonstrations against racial injustice.

Rear Adm. Alvin Holsey, one of the Navy’s few Black admirals, led the task force, which held nearly 300 listening sessions and conducted close to 1,000 online surveys with the fleet.

“Every listening session had the same key themes: respect, empathy, training, skepticism,” Holsey told reporters on Monday.

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Skepticism frequently stood out in the sessions, he said.

“There were several sailors who said, ‘Hey, why now? We’re not really sure anything’s gonna happen.’ We told them that . . . sometimes we take our feet off the pedal, sometimes we can lose focus, but we’re very focused at this time here.”

The suggestions that stemmed from the discussions include basic changes, such as adding “Respect” to the Navy’s core values, as well as more complex alterations, like using artificial intelligence to reduce potential bias when selecting sailors for promotion.

The task force called for increased transparency in how the Navy chooses people for promotion and top assignments by revealing more statistics about such advancements. Details about race, ethnicity and gender should now be shown as it would “reduce perceptions of favoritism or bias in the selection board process,” according to the report.

In addition, the group recommends that the Navy assess “problematic names” for ships, buildings and streets. Such ships include the USS Chancellorsville, named after a Confederacy victory during the Civil War. The USS John C. Stennis, meanwhile, is an aircraft carrier named after a segregationist senator.

The task force also allowed that while its suggestions are a step in the right direction, not all of them might hit the mark on its intended goals.

“The recommendations might not all be right, but they are recommendations, nonetheless,” the report states. “Recommendations were developed that recognize some systemic inequalities and offer solutions to help our Navy become a more lethal and well-connected warfighting force.”

The Navy, while more diverse than the United States as a whole, struggles with diversity among its highest ranked officers. Out of 219 admirals, only 16 are female, none with four stars, and only six are Black, none with more than two stars.

“Our Navy must continue to remove barriers to service, and most importantly, be a shining example of a workforce centered on respect, inclusive of all. Simply put, all Sailors – uniformed and civilian – and applicants for accession to the Navy must be treated with dignity and respect above all else,” Gilday said in a statement ahead of the report’s release.

He added that there is “still work to be done,” but he is “confident that this report’s recommendations will help make our Navy better, and we will move forward together towards meaningful long-lasting change.”

The Navy does not yet have a timeline for implementing the task force’s recommendations, as Gilday must first sign off on the proposals before the service will “move out full speed ahead” to implement them, according to a fact sheet on the report.

“Some of the recommendations may require a delayed or phased approach to achieve their desired goals due to the complexity of the recommendation,” the fact sheet notes.

Read Task Force One Navy Final Report by kballuck1 on Scribd

Initial testing of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, developed in partnership with Oxford University, shows that it slows virus transmission in addition to protecting recipients, researchers announced on Tuesday.

Their study, which has not been peer-reviewed, indicated that the AstraZeneca vaccine could cut transmission by almost two-thirds. 

The research is the first to find evidence that a vaccine could cut down on coronavirus spread. 

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Matt Hancock, the British health secretary, celebrated the initial research on Wednesday, telling the BBC that a vaccine that decreases transmission “will help us all get out of this pandemic.”

The data analysis, which experts told The New York Times needs to be further confirmed, also determined that a single dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine was 76 percent effective at protecting a person from contracting COVID-19 90 days after it was administered. 

The results also suggested that the amount of time between the two doses affected the effectiveness. At least a three-month delay between doses resulted in 82 percent effectiveness, while efficacy dropped to 55 percent with  less than six weeks between shots.

Researchers noted that providing the doses three months apart “may be the optimal for rollout of a pandemic vaccine when supplies are limited in the short term.”

This analysis supports the strategy that several countries are taking to prioritize providing the first doses of the vaccine to residents, the Times noted.

The study only looked into the AstraZeneca vaccine and not the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, the two currently available in the U.S.

The U.S. has ordered 300 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, but the Food and Drug Administration is waiting to authorize it until the results from a clinical trial come out later this month.

A federal court has vacated the Trump administration’s “secret science” Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule, which critics had said would undermine the use of public health studies in agency rulemaking. 

The decision comes after the Biden administration asked the court to throw out the rule restricting the EPA’s use of studies that don’t make their underlying data publicly available.

In his order vacating the rule and remanding it to the EPA, Montana federal District Judge Brian Morris noted that the agency argued that a prior court ruling eliminated the rule’s legal basis. 

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“Defendants explain that in light of the Court’s conclusion that the Final Rule constitutes a substantive rule, the Environmental Protection Agency lacked authorization to promulgate the rule pursuant to its housekeeping authority, which is the only source of authority identified in the Final Rule,” said the order from Morris, an Obama appointee. 

The Trump EPA classified the rule as procedural, rather than substantive, which allowed it to become effective immediately under the agency’s housekeeping authority rather than having to wait for the standard 30 days after Federal Register publication.

Morris, in a decision last week, ruled against this, determining that the rule was substantive, not procedural, terminating the agency’s fast-track of it. 

“The Final Rule’s status becomes particularly clear when one examines what it is missing — any kind of procedure. EPA itself noted in its rulemaking that it would have to issue future guidance on how the rule operates procedurally,” he wrote at the time. 

That decision delayed it from going into effect, making it subject to a Biden administration freeze and review on Trump-era rules that were not yet effective.

Prior to the court decision on Monday, the rule appeared to be under White House review.

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Trump administration officials had billed it as a transparency measure and a way to combat “secret science.” Opponents warned that it could hamstring the use of major health studies that keep their data under wraps for legitimate reasons including privacy.

The rule didn’t eliminate the use of all studies with private data but gave preference to those with public data.

An EPA spokesperson said in an email that the agency was “pleased” with the decision to vacate the rule.

“EPA is committed to making evidence-based decisions and developing policies and programs that are guided by the best science,” the spokesperson said.

Meanwhile, environmentalist groups that had sued over the rule celebrated the court order.

“Today’s decision is great news for EPA’s ability to use rigorous, lifesaving science to protect all Americans from dangerous pollution and toxic chemicals,” said Environmental Defense Fund senior attorney Ben Levitan in a statement.

— Updated at 2:56 p.m.