ARTICLE: What do you mean by "sound science"

["Jacobus, John (OD/ORS)" <jacobusj@ors.od.nih.gov>]

Given the latest round on what is truth, and media bashing, I thought the

following article from today's Washington Post would be of interest.  Caveat

lector.



-- John 

John Jacobus, MS

Certified Health Physicist 

3050 Traymore Lane

Bowie, MD  20715-2024



E-mail:  jenday1@email.msn.com (H)      



To view the entire article, go to

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18131-2002May1.html



Moving Target on Policy Battlefield



By Eric Pianin



 President Bush, in pulling out of an international global warming treaty

last year, said he wasn't convinced by scientific research that the problem

was all that serious.



 Similarly, the president and senior aides cited conflicting scientific

studies for their decisions to postpone adoption of tough new standards for

arsenic in drinking water, oppose increased fuel efficiency standards for

automobiles and suggest a relaxation of a proposed ban on snowmobiling in

Yellowstone National Park.



 On these and many other environmental and energy-related issues, the

president has said his commitment to "sound science" justified his generally

industry-friendly policies. "When we make decisions, we want to make sure we

do so on sound science," Bush said recently. "Not what sounds good, but what

is real."



 The Bush administration's approach to science policy has become

increasingly controversial, however. Some scientists and lawmakers said the

White House selectively uses studies to fit its political agenda and to

justify its challenge to dozens of environmental rules drafted during the

Clinton administration. The debate is highly subjective, frequently turning

on nuanced interpretations of complicated scientific research, which makes

it difficult to prove or disprove many of the White House claims -- or the

claims of Bush's critics.



 "I'm afraid that in politics, science just becomes a tool to be manipulated

by both sides," said Fred L. Smith Jr., president of the Competitive

Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank dedicated to free

enterprise and limited government activity. "The problem with the concept of

'sound science' is that it presumes you can depoliticize policy, and of

course you can't."



 Controversy over the scientific basis of public policy has raged for years

in Washington, peaking in the mid-1990s, when conservative Republicans in

control of Congress waged war on the Clinton administration's environmental

programs. Democrats and environmental leaders fought back with a flurry of

studies purporting to show how the Republicans were wreaking havoc on the

environment. Republicans, conservative think tanks and industry groups

dismissed the analyses as "junk science."



 Bush and his top aides picked up on this theme, vowing to challenge

environmental regulations if their scientific underpinnings appeared shaky,

and to steep their policymaking in the best scientific research available.

But some environmentalists said "best science" can be code for currying

favor with the business community and private property interests.



 For example, two prominent scientists last week took the administration to

task for approving development of a huge, centralized nuclear waste

repository in Nevada "in the face of the scientific uncertainties about the

site."



 Bush last month authorized the Department of Energy to proceed with plans

for the repository beneath Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas,

despite the fact that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission recently identified

293 unresolved technical issues. They ranged from the extent of faulting and

fracturing of the repository rock over time to the speed with which water

can seep through heated rock and corrode storage canisters.



 "To move ahead without first addressing the outstanding scientific issues

will only continue to marginalize the role of science and detract from the

credibility of [the government's] efforts," said Rodney C. Ewing of the

University of Michigan and Allison Macfarlane of the Massachusetts Institute

of Technology, in an analysis appearing in the latest issue of the journal

Science.



 Administration officials contend that the decision on Yucca Mountain --

still subject to congressional and NRC review -- is backed by years of

exhaustive scientific research. "We made a recommendation based on sound

science," Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said last week.



 Administration officials said they have studiously used strong scientific

research to buttress a wide range of decisions, from global warming and air

quality standards to expanded mineral exploration and energy efficiency

standards for industry.



 "I think the history of the field is that weak science hurts the reputation

of environmental regulation," said John D. Graham, the White House

regulatory affairs chief.



 The administration has recruited conservative regulatory experts and former

industry executives for senior positions at the White House and key agencies

to serve as filters for government regulations and to assess the

cost-benefit ratio of new proposals. Graham, former director of the Harvard

Center for Risk Analysis, serves as one of the chief regulatory gatekeepers

within the Office of Management and Budget. James L. Connaughton, chairman

of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the president's chief

adviser on environmental regulation, is a lawyer and former environmental

corporate lobbyist.



 The EPA, meanwhile, is using more outside scientists for peer review of

government research and rule-making and it has adopted new internal data

quality guidelines and standards for evaluating outside research to weed out

"junk science." Paul Gilman, a former senior researcher at the National

Academy of Sciences, was recently appointed the EPA's new chief science

adviser in a bid to improve the quality of research, and the administration

asked Congress for a $35 million increase in the budget for the EPA's office

of research and development.



 "What we're trying to do is match science against science to see what makes

sense," EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman said in an interview. "The

most important thing is to get science in at the beginning, to provide some

scientific validation for what we're doing aside from the policy."



 Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert (R-N.Y.), chairman of the Science Committee,

credits the administration with being willing to seek out opposing views on

environmental issues. "Whether they will heed them is another question,"

Boehlert said yesterday, during an EPA forum on science and public policy.

"But they're moving in the right direction."



 Still, some environmentalists and scientists said the Bush administration

frequently dictates or manipulates the results of studies when they conflict

with the president's political agenda. The government's increased use of

outside peer review, they said, gives greater influence to

industry-sponsored scientists.



 "Science is only a public relations tool for this White House," said Philip

E. Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust. "Saying that you

are going to use 'best science' is simply the Bush administration's way of

explaining why they are not taking action to address environmental

problems."



 For instance, Clapp said, after environmentalists and world leaders

condemned the president's decision to disavow an international global

warming treaty, the White House last May asked the National Academy of

Sciences to assess climate science and identify any weaknesses. The

subsequent report largely confirmed previous studies, showing that global

warming was a serious threat to civilization and that it was at least partly

the result of industrial greenhouse gas emissions. But the White House

highlighted sections raising uncertainties in climate science to bolster its

argument against a treaty calling for mandatory emission reductions.



 In March, the administration played down National Academy of Sciences

findings that improvements in fuel economy standards for automobiles would

decrease U.S. dependence on oil imports, save consumers money and reduce

global warming. The administration, joined by the auto industry in opposing

the higher standards, instead cited government and insurance industry

findings that a switch to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars might lead to

more traffic deaths -- and required further study.



 Whitman disputed claims that the administration was manipulating or

distorting scientific findings for political advantage. "I don't think we're

cherry-picking," she said. "We're just trying to decide what is the best

approach. Science doesn't always give you a definitive answer."



 Earlier last month, an EPA official in Denver gave the worst rating

possible to an environmental impact assessment on a proposal to drill for

gas in Wyoming's Powder River Basin. That posed a serious obstacle to the

proposed development of 39,000 gas wells favored by the Interior Department.

The EPA's assessment was immediately challenged by Deputy Interior Secretary

J. Steven Griles, who said it "will create, at best, misimpressions and

possibly impede the ability to move forward in a constructive manner."



 Gilman, EPA's chief science adviser, played down the significance of the

interagency conflict. "I view the fact we go around on a topic with another

agency as very healthy," he said. An Interior Department spokesman said

Griles merely wanted to urge the two agencies to work on their concerns

together.

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