The Obama Administration’s newly released science policy memo is an important and largely positive development in the effort to protect science and scientists from politics. In particular, the policy takes aim at many of the abuses of science and scientists that defined the Bush era. It’s particularly encouraging, for example, that the policy calls on political appointees to take a hands-off approach to science.
That said, in several areas, the policy could have, and should have, gone farther. The tension between science and politics predates the Bush Administration, and systemic reforms are long overdue. The Obama Administration science policy memo was an opportunity to address these issues, but it focused instead on fixing problems primarily from the Bush Administration.
The memo, issued by John Holdren, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), does not address the permissive approach many agencies have used in their reliance on privately produced science to formulate federal regulations. Private science, generally produced by regulated parties, often involves an inherent conflict of interest. Public access to underlying data and methods of privately produced science is also limited and can sometimes be completely unavailable. Yet the memo focuses on the science produced within the agencies, and not the science that agencies use more generally to develop regulations. Since private science is often the primary if not the exclusive basis for federal rulemakings in many important legislative areas, the memo avoids tackling a serious, systemic problem in the agencies’ use of science that should have at least been acknowledged, if not addressed. Ironically, in fact, the memo implies that government science lacks full credibility and adequate peer review, despite the fact that government science has strong safeguards in these areas, compared to private science.
Full textThere is plenty of environmental despair right now . . . spreading oil in the Gulf, legislative inaction on climate change and a host of other issues, and the sense that for every step forward, there is a special interest that will take the nation two steps back.
So, in this downward spiral of disappointments, is there any ray of hope? Rena Steinzor and Sidney Shapiro hit upon one promising possibility in their important new book, The People's Agents and the Battle to Protect the American Public: Special Interests, Government, and Threats to Health, Safety, and the Environment. After cataloging the sorry state of the regulatory institutions tasked with protecting health and the environment, the authors offer innovative suggestions for a set of positive metrics that not only help hold agencies publicly accountable, but also reward agencies for acting proactively. An added, invaluable attribute of these positive metrics is that they can be implemented without additional funding or substantive legislation. Unlike the 1993 Government Performance Results Act and other efforts to devise benchmarks, moreover, Steinzor and Shapiro’s positive metrics proposal focuses on accessible policy goals, clear measures of goal-accomplishment, and a comprehensive diagnosis by the agency when a goal is not met. The causes of agency failure could include, for example, blaming statutory mandates and judicial opinions as well as internal agency handicaps like resources and staffing. For those of us on the sidelines witnessing a succession of regulatory problems and sensing a future of institutional drift, the notion of grounding agency performance in publicly accessible metrics is sheer genius.
Full textAfter laying dormant for decades, industries’ abuse of EPA’s permissive confidential business information program (CBI) is finally getting some serious attention. An investigation in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and more recently articles in the Washington Post and Risk Policy Report; a report by the Environmental Working Group; and posts by Richard Denison at EDF, are turning the tide. Those of us at CPR who have spilled ink on various CBI problems over the years (i.e., Mary Lyndon, Tom McGarity, Sid Shapiro, Rena Steinzor, and myself) are thrilled to witness how these journalists and environmental watchdogs have finally managed to budge EPA on its contemptible program.
One document that has been referenced in several recent reports, but that I think deserves further attention, is an extensive empirical study of EPA’s CBI program by a consultant, Hampshire Associates. EPA commissioned this study in 1992 to evaluate whether EPA’s CBI program was in need of reform. Hampshire Associates documented extensive abuse of the CBI program by regulated industry, particularly in regulatory programs in which EPA does not require any justification for a CBI claim. The report is particularly relevant to current debates because virtually nothing has changed in EPA’s CBI policies since 1992. Continued evidence of CBI overclaiming over the years (see pages 129-35 and 146-47 in this article, where David Michaels and I argue that EPA's CBI program is far too lax) suggests that, if anything, abuse of the CBI privilege may only be getting worse, rather than better since the Hampshire Associates' study.
Full textOn Wednesday, the Bipartisan Policy Center's Science for Policy Project released its report (press release, full report) on the use of science in regulation-making. I was on the panel and thus am a bit biased, but I think the report makes a terrific contribution. It significantly narrows the range of positions that can be credibly debated about the appropriate level of oversight needed to ensure the quality of regulatory science. At the same time, it introduces some important new ideas for improving science-policy, like creating incentives for scientists to provide stronger peer review. In the process of finalizing the report, we all had to make some concessions. Rather than feeling that the resulting recommendations were of the lowest-common-denominator type, however, I believe the entire panel felt that the report contains a lot of specific details that, if implemented, would be dramatic improvements on the status quo. Hopefully the report will be useful to OSTP’s work and other highly respected groups, like CPR, will agree with many of the recommendations.
Full text
