Scientific Integrity Progress Report: Next Steps
The Obama Administration Next Steps
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Full Suite of Recommendations
Upcoming Deadlines and Reforms that are still needed
Communications Guidelines: The presidential science adviser should develop guidelines and require agencies to adopt policies based on these guidelines that ensure free and open communication between scientists and researchers, and the media, policy makers, and the public.
Agency Media Policies: The Obama administration should encourage agencies to adopt media policies that allow free and open communication between government scientists, the media and the public.
Prohibit White House Tampering with Science: In an executive order on regulatory review, President Obama should explicitly prevent the White House Office of Management and Budget from reviewing, selecting or critiquing the scientific information prepared by agencies in support of a regulation. If review and editing of technical information is needed, it should be done by qualified scientists—either agency experts or federal advisory committee members—through a transparent formal peer-review process. The White House does not have sufficient scientific expertise to second-guess the analysis of agency scientists.
Improving Publishing Practices: Information sharing is an essential component of the scientific process. While the broad direction of federal research is dictated by agency missions and funding priorities, federal scientists and researchers should be free to conduct that research and publish findings without fear of retaliation. The presidential science adviser should review agency policies on the clearance of official and non-official publications, presentations, and other information.
Early Release of Scientific Documents: The Obama administration should ensure that political editing of scientific documents does not occur by publicly releasing original scientific drafts before they are subjected to political review by the White House.
Classification Policy Review: The Obama administration should undertake a review of current policies regarding the classification of government information to ensure that information is routinely released to the public unless there exists a compelling reason to keep it secret.
Pushing Congress on Whistleblower Protections: President Obama should send a clear signal to Congress that he expects passage of legislation giving strong whistleblower protections for all federal workers, including scientists who report the misuse of science in their agencies.
Setting the Tone for Whistleblowers: The president should direct agency heads to refrain from retaliating against whistleblowers through reassignments, demotions, or terminations. Agency heads should also issue statements that encourage staff to speak out internally about concerns—especially those involving an abuse of science—and state that agencies values their input.
Meeting Transparency: The Obama administration should release information on the web regarding official meetings between agency staff and outside entities. Advances in information technology would make such a policy simple to implement and would greatly increase the transparency of agency operations.
Federal Advisory Committees: The Obama administration should work with Congress to reform and strengthen the federal scientific advisory committee system. Political litmus tests for membership on scientific committees should be banned and rules prohibiting individuals with financial conflicts of interest should be strictly enforced. Scientists who belong to professional associations should be free to participate on advisory committees.
Making Data Accessible: The Obama administration should radically improve its use of technology to share information with the public, with the goal of making all government information searchable, shareable, and usable. In particular, data from federal monitoring programs—such as air pollution monitoring networks, satellite observations of Earth systems, and the collection of workplace injury statistics—should be included in this system.
Better Explanations for Decisions: The Obama administration should develop practices to provide more information to the public on how science is used in regulatory decision making. Agencies should disclose how regulations are developed, who was involved in making decisions, and whether or not there is any dissenting scientific opinion.
Disclose Meetings with Special Interests: All federal agencies should institute a transparency policy for meetings with outside entities. This policy should require that the agency post on its website a complete record of all meetings with outside entities including for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, other agencies, and individuals (with the exception of meetings related to national security).
What Do You Think? The journey to restore scientific integrity to federal policymaking is multi-layered and extremely complex. What are your ideas for creating a more thriving federal scientific enterprise? Click here to share your thoughts.
