02/04/2004: 
Fraud & Conspiracy
White House v. Science
from Philadelphia Inquirer
referred by alert reader Thomas Pain(e)
The Bush administration is determined to give new meaning to the term political science.
While jabbering about "sound science," President Bush has packed advisory panels with ideological appointments, censored reports, and gagged government scientists.
Now, an obscure administrative power grab, camouflaged as a scientific gold standard, will likely result in giving politics even more control over science.
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is tarnishing "peer review," a respected process routinely used by academic journals and government agencies. In peer review, knowledgeable scientists evaluate the soundness of one another's research.
OMB, created in 1970 to advise the president on the federal budget, wants to micromanage who reviews studies emanating from all over government, from the Occupational Health and Safety Administration to the Environmental Protection Agency to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Perhaps worst of all, they have written bizarrre new conflict-of-interest rules for peer review that would disqualify some of the nation's best minds (because they got government research grants), while allowing industry-funded scientists to pack peer review panels. The pretext is scientific rigor, but the subtext is ideology.
[...]
If that seems far-fetched, just look at who's lining up for and against the proposal. Proponents read like a who's-who of industry lobbyists (many of them Bush campaign contributors): the Edison Electric Institute, the American Petroleum Institute, Ford Motor Co., National Cattlemen's Association, the Industrial Minerals Association of North America.
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Laboratory ratsThe Bush administration is determined to give new meaning to the term political science.
While jabbering about "sound science," President Bush has packed advisory panels with ideological appointments, censored reports, and gagged government scientists.
Now, an obscure administrative power grab, camouflaged as a scientific gold standard, will likely result in giving politics even more control over science.
The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is tarnishing "peer review," a respected process routinely used by academic journals and government agencies. In peer review, knowledgeable scientists evaluate the soundness of one another's research.
OMB, created in 1970 to advise the president on the federal budget, wants to micromanage who reviews studies emanating from all over government, from the Occupational Health and Safety Administration to the Environmental Protection Agency to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
These numbers crunchers, who have no scientific expertise, have offered scant rationale for wresting oversight from career scientists.
Perhaps worst of all, they have written bizarrre new conflict-of-interest rules for peer review that would disqualify some of the nation's best minds (because they got government research grants), while allowing industry-funded scientists to pack peer review panels. The pretext is scientific rigor, but the subtext is ideology.
These new procedures could indefinitely bog down important rule-making that protects the health and safety of Americans.
And perhaps that's the point.
Industry has long denounced the nation's regulatory system, particularly when a study found a product unsafe or a chemical polluting. OMB's new policy would make it easier for the administration to quietly short-circuit rules by questioning the underlying science (already one of its favorite games).
If that seems far-fetched, just look at who's lining up for and against the proposal. Proponents read like a who's-who of industry lobbyists (many of them Bush campaign contributors): the Edison Electric Institute, the American Petroleum Institute, Ford Motor Co., National Cattlemen's Association, the Industrial Minerals Association of North America.
The opposing side is a roll call of the nation's most esteemed scientists: the National Academies of Science, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Federation of American Scientists, the Association of American Medical Colleges, plus environmental, consumer and public-interest groups.
In numerous public comments on the proposed change, scientists complain that OMB hasn't offered a single reason for reinventing a peer review system that wasn't broken.
It is true that agency peer review policies are uneven. The EPA and Food and Drug Administration, for example, have detailed, multilayered procedures. The Department of Agriculture and Army Corps of Engineers, on the other hand, have no policies at all. But OMB could fix any problems without imposing this harmful "one-size-fits-all" directive.
Foremost, agencies need flexibility. Not all scientific information requires the same level of time-consuming, expensive peer review. In some cases, simple internal review is, in fact, sufficient.
Regardless of the level of review, the budget crunchers at OMB aren't the only watchdogs on the case.
If questions are raised after a study comes out, agencies already have inspectors general to investigate. Congress can call in its detective, the General Accounting Office. Citizens and industry have recourse to sue.
The American Public Health Association's biggest fear is this policy's "potential negative impact on public health and environmental regulation" - with good reason.
Hidden in the policy is a subtle shift in emergency powers to OMB. In an "imminent health hazard," the administrator of OMB - not generally a public health expert - would determine when and whether to release information to the public.
The White House tried this before, downplaying the air quality hazards in New York City after the collapse of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. And the OMB has been criticized for stopping the EPA from declaring a public health emergency over asbestos contamination in Montana.
Decisions on potential crises - whether air quality, mad cow disease, SARS, anthrax or a nuclear plant accident - belong to experts focused on public health, far removed from the politics of the next election.
The Bush administration is at it again. This policy isn't "sound science." It just sounds like science.
3 Annotations Submitted
Wednesday the 4th of February, awiggins noted:
If I honestly thought that Bush could read, I would say that his favorite author was Orwell.
Wednesday the 4th of February, rafuzo noted:
Beware in passing off editorials as if they are unbiased news reporting.
The op-ed makes NO connection that any senior official in the Bush administration is behind this change. Unless the author of this editorial can point to an official appointed by Bush as organizing this thing, there's nothing to say this didn't come from a career manager who is, by law, restricted from participating in the "political process". That means he cannot campaign for or against a candidate, cannot even publicly offer political opinions, and certainly cannot be the beneficiary of any disbursements from political sources.
The article further paints the opponents of this rehashing of the peer review process as somehow independent minds against purely partisan propagandists, yet a number of the organizations listed above show up in FEC lobbyist records.
Industry has long denounced the nation's regulatory system, particularly when a study found a product unsafe or a chemical polluting.
And in some cases, for good reason. For years my father worked for utilities to get NRC safety regulations altered or outright removed, because the regulations were idiotic and had no basis in scientific fact. He used to outline a litany of some of the more absurd regulations that did nothing to enhance safety and simply made reactors cost more. But because he worked for "industry", obviously his concern was more for saving his masters a few measley dollars and making plants more dangerous.
If questions are raised after a study comes out, agencies already have inspectors general to investigate. Congress can call in its detective, the General Accounting Office. Citizens and industry have recourse to sue.
And it makes you wonder where these recourses are going, just because the OMB wants to institute more rigorous conflict-of-interest rules, say to prevent an "esteemed scientist" from Greenpeace performing an "unbiased" review of a global-warming study. Will inspectors general and the GAO be stripped of their investigative powers?
Hidden in the policy is a subtle shift in emergency powers to OMB. In an "imminent health hazard," the administrator of OMB - not generally a public health expert - would determine when and whether to release information to the public.
The editorial doesn't say whether this "administrator" is the presidentally appointed OMB director or deputy director, or one of the lower (and non-appointable) administrators of one of the OMD Resource Offices. An important oversight in making charges of political collusion, but in any event, yes, most likely they are NOT public health experts. But then, neither is the director of the EPA (also being an appointee). It's vague, in any event, what these "emergency powers" might be, since the first thing that happens (as any good X-files fan knows) in a federal emergency is FEMA gets authority.
Wednesday the 4th of February, prof noted:
Beware in passing off editorials as if they are unbiased news reporting.
as Edward R Murrow once said, the only unbiased thing in a newsroom is the typewriter...
taken alone, this op-ed does not make an effective argument for the theory that the bush administration is trying to manipulate the bueracracy to serve the wishes of fortune 500 corporations, but is just another file in the mounting pile of evidence.
