Monday was a good day for our nation’s science policy. At the same time he announced that the federal government will abandon misguided restrictions on stem cell research, President Obama unveiled an effort to promote a sea change in the way political appointees will treat the science that informs so many federal policies.
In a memorandum to department heads across the government, President Obama announced that John Holdren, the soon-to-be-confirmed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), will develop a plan to achieve a goal of “ensuring the highest level of integrity in all aspects of the executive branch's involvement with scientific and technological processes.”
The memorandum hints at some very encouraging ideas that reflect a significant change in attitude from the Bush Administration. For starters, President Obama writes that “science and the scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my Administration.” President Bush always talked about the importance of science, but it was always “sound science,” which, roughly translated, meant “administration-approved science.” Hopefully President Obama's focus on the scientific process means that he will let evolving knowledge guide his policy choices, rather than unwavering ideology.
The other exciting prospect outlined in President Obama’s memo is his request that each agency create “procedures to identify and address instances in which the scientific process or the integrity of scientific and technological information may be compromised.” Several Inspectors General and congressional committees have done excellent work investigating incidences of scientific misconduct in recent years, but this ad-hoc approach to oversight could use improvement. A well-designed independent review system that enlists scientists who understand the inherent vagaries of cutting-edge research might provide the systemic accountability mechanism that we need.
President Obama gave Holdren and his colleagues at OSTP 120 days to develop a roadmap for improving scientific integrity in the federal government. Although the memo doesn’t specifically call for it, Holdren would make good use of that short timeframe by requesting public comment on this important document. After the shenanigans of the last administration, we have plenty of ideas.
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Matt Shudtz | March 11, 2009
Monday was a good day for our nation’s science policy. At the same time he announced that the federal government will abandon misguided restrictions on stem cell research, President Obama unveiled an effort to promote a sea change in the way political appointees will treat the science that informs so many federal policies. In […]
William Buzbee | March 10, 2009
On March 3rd, the Supreme Court issued its much awaited decision in Summers v. Earth Island Institute. This was the latest in a series of cases dating to the early 1990s where the central question has concerned citizen standing: will the courts allow a citizen to stand before a court to argue that government or […]
Robert L. Glicksman | March 10, 2009
(CPR Member Scholar Robert L. Glicksman replies below to CPR Member Scholar William Buzbee’s post on the Summers vs. Earth Island Institute decision.) The decision in Summers represents the latest salvo in a continuing battle between those Supreme Court Justices who view the function of standing doctrine as ensuring that litigation before the federal […]
Matthew Freeman | March 9, 2009
CPR Member Scholar Thomas McGarity had op-eds over the weekend in three Texas newspapers — the Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle and Austin American-Statesman. His topic is Wyeth vs. Levine, last week’s blockbuster case from the Supreme Court, in which the Court rejected the Bush Administration’s multi-year effort to use the federal regulatory process as […]
Yee Huang | March 9, 2009
In the decade between 1994 and 2004, the bottled water industry enjoyed a meteoric rise as consumers flocked to their product, paying more per gallon than gasoline and neglecting a virtually free source of water – the tap. Bottled water drinkers formed fierce allegiances to their favorite brands, elevating bottled water beyond a beverage […]
Rena Steinzor | March 6, 2009
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is the most maligned and least respected federal agency with responsibility for protecting people’s lives. Now that Hilda Solis has been confirmed as Secretary of the Department of Labor, we can only hope that a new OSHA administrator with a strong stomach, an iron will, and a “yes […]
Holly Doremus | March 5, 2009
The following is cross-posted by permission from Legal Planet. The Bush administration’s last-minute ESA (non)consultation rule is getting almost as much attention now as it did during the comment period. Then, the administration reportedly received more than 300,000 comments, the vast majority of them negative. Those objections were, of course, quickly swept under the […]
Matthew Freeman | March 4, 2009
After suffering years of neglect at the hands of the Bush Administration and conservatives in Congress, Superfund may be on the verge of springing back to life. That at least is the objective of a new proposal from President Obama, included in his recent budget outline, calling for the reinstatement of a tax on polluting […]
Nina Mendelson | March 4, 2009
This morning the Supreme handed down its ruling in Wyeth v. Levine. In its majority opinion, the Court rejected the argument of pharmaceutical giant Wyeth that the FDA’s approval of its label for Phenergan effectively “preempted” a tort suit brought against it by a patient claiming that the manufacturer failed to provide adequate warning about […]