[Dialogue] Muzzling Those Pesky Scientists

[Harry Wainwright]

 <http://www.nytimes.com/>  <http://www.nytimes.com/> The New York Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/> 

 




  _____  

December 11, 2006

Editorial

Muzzling Those Pesky Scientists 

The Environmental Protection Agency disclosed last week that it had revised
- stood on their head is more like it - procedures it has used for 25 years
to set standards for air pollutants like soot and lead. The administration
said the change will streamline decision making. Perhaps it will. It will
also have the further effect of decreasing the role of science in policy
making while increasing the influence of the agency's political appointees. 

This is disheartening, but not surprising. Whether the issue is birth
control or global warming or clean air, this administration has already
acquired a special place in regulatory history for the audacity with which
it has manipulated or muzzled science (and in some cases individual
scientists) that might discomfit its industrial allies or interfere with its
political agenda. 

The E.P.A. is required every five years to review scientific research and
set new exposure levels for six pollutants identified as hazardous to human
health. Normally, recommendations are first solicited from two groups of
scientists: professional staff members inside the agency and independent
outside scientists. Those recommendations are then sent to the department's
senior officers - nearly all political appointees - who shape departmental
policy and then send it to the White House and Office of Management and
Budget for clearance. 

Under the new process, initial reviews will be done by staff scientists and
political appointees, who together will produce a synopsis of
"policy-relevant" science - which sounds ominously like science tailored to
predetermined policy outcomes. The independent scientists, meanwhile, will
be frozen out until the very end, when they will be allowed to comment on
proposals that will have already generated considerable momentum.

The betting among environmental groups is that these new procedures will
lead to weaker air quality standards more in keeping with industry
objectives - indeed, the American Petroleum Institute is already claiming
credit for some of the changes. The new procedures will also help spare the
agency the sort of public embarrassment it suffered in October, when its
final standards for soot turned out to be far weaker than those recommended
earlier (and virtually unanimously) by its staff scientists and the outside
consultants. 

Under the new process, when the E.P.A. considers how it will set air
pollution standards, the only debate it will have is with itself.

 

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2006 The New York Times Company <http://www.nytco.com/>  

 

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