Science and politics

The White House has set some needed guidelines to limit political interference in scientific

 reports used to guide public policy. The rules described by John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, respond to charges that Bush administration officials altered or had other government officials modify scientific reports, particularly about global warming, to suit their political viewpoints.

The four pages of guidelines include "a clear prohibition on political interference in scientific processes and expanded assurances of transparencies," he wrote. Government public affairs officers are barred from asking or directing federal scientists to alter findings. Research and other data used to support policy decisions are supposed to be subjected to peer review "by qualified experts.

President Obama ordered the guidelines in response to practices in the Bush administration, when Council on Environmental Quality staffers made nearly 300 changes to a document on climate change to downplay the link between human activity and climate change.

However, the Obama administration was forced to defend its own actions recently when allegations were raised that the White House had edited a drilling safety report following the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The changes made it appear that the scientists supported President Obama's ban on deep-water drilling. But to get to this point, John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, may have battled through the bureaucratic equivalent of the Napoleonic Wars.

Holdren finally released a long-promised set of guidelines for scientific integrity in US government departments and agencies. On the White House website Holdren wrote that the document includes "a clear prohibition on political interference in scientific processes and expanded assurances of transparency". He also wrote that department and agency heads would have 120 days to demonstrate progress towards implementing the new rules.

Watchdog groups who campaign for sound science in government decision-making gave the guidelines a cautious reception. "We will just have to wait and see what the agencies do with it," says Francesca Grifo of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Obama issued a memorandum on scientific integrity that forbade the distortion of science for political ends. The move seemed to signal a clear departure from practices adopted during the administration of President George W. Bush, which faced accusations of weakening the role of science in regulatory agencies and of muzzling scientists whose views were at odds with those of the White House.

The guidelines, expected in July 2009, became mired in unwieldy discussion as Holdren struggled to get all relevant departments and agencies to accept a common set of principles. The US Department of the Interior issued a draft policy earlier this year, only to backtrack after advocacy groups slammed it as incomplete and ambiguous. Following the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in summer 2010, the Obama administration was itself accused of suppressing scientific information to put a better gloss on the situation.

It directs agencies to "ensure that the data and research used to support policy decisions undergo independent peer review", to adopt protection for whistleblowers and to "facilitate the free flow of scientific and technological information".

whose research focuses on the intersection of public policy with science, questions why it has taken so long to issue such a limited document. "It sets forth discussion questions about scientific integrity in government, but I don't think it resolves them," he says. Pielke says that given how long it took to create the document, there may not be time for much progress before the end of Obama's term of office in 2012. It was a very long wait for four pages," says Jeff Ruch of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), based in Washington DC, which has represented several scientist whistleblowers. "We feel frustrated that this process is horribly off schedule." Ruch says that several sentences have the potential to make things worse, rather than better, for government scientists. For example, the guidelines say that researchers can speak to the media, provided there has been "appropriate coordination" with public-affairs offices, but they fail to define what is appropriate. They also allow scientists to speak publicly about their "official work" but fail to offer protection for scientists who are judged to have spoken up in their private capacity.

She points to sections that unambiguously allow government scientists to serve on the boards of scientific societies and journals, to present findings at scientific conferences and to accept awards and honours for the science they do. These are major issues, she adds, because the UCS has heard from government scientists who have been prevented from doing these things in the past because of a perceived conflict of interest.

James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, who became well known for speaking out publicly about censorship of his scientific work by NASA press offices during the Bush administration, says that the new policy does not change either of what he sees as two central problems; the use of political appointees to run public-affairs offices, and the requirement that the White House screen testimonies that scientists make to Congress.