Native Plant Conservation Campaign News: The Ecological Society of America responds to the Department of the Interior (which manages National Wildlife Refuges and the Endangered Species Act, among other things) moves to further "undermine scientific integrity".
From the Ecological Society of America's Policy News
We've Seen This Before: Interior Follows EPA's Lead with Order to Undermine Scientific Integrity
The U.S. Department of Interior (Interior) implemented a new policy that echoes the 'secret science' administrative rule proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), dubbed the "Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science" rule. It would restrict what scientific findings could be used to make regulations. The Ecological Society of America reported on the EPA's proposed rule in the Oct. 10, 2018 Policy News. Oct. 16, the White House Office of Management and Budget released the administration's regulatory agenda, which puts the "transparency rule" on the EPA's back burner with an expected final rule on hold until 2020.
In tandem to the proposed EPA rule, legislative action mirroring the policy continues. The House passed its version of the measure, H.R. 1530, in March 29, 2017, and the Senate version, S. 1794, is now under consideration. In Oct. Rush Holt, CEO of AAAS, testified about the bill in a hearing held by the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Management and Regulatory Oversight. Holt stated the following:
"To put it bluntly, the initiative you consider today is not about sound science. It is about reducing regulations[.]... The effect of the rule would be a significant reduction in good, relevant science that could be used by the Environmental Protection Agency and the change would likely result in harm to people and their environment."
Interior's version of the policy direction of the above bills and the EPA proposed rule, the "Promoting Open Science" order, was issued by Interior Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt Sept. 28. This order states:
"Any decision that is based on scientific conclusions that are not supported by publicly available raw data, analysis or methodology, have not been peer-reviewed, or are not readily reproducible should include an explanation of why such science is the best available information."
Although Interior's exception of allowing "an explanation of why such science is the best available information" is not a part of the EPA rule, the overall effect of Interior's order will mirror EPA's: The requirement "that Bureaus and Offices should utilize and prioritize publicly available, reproducible, peer-reviewed science to the extent possible."
As reported by E&E News, the order could make it harder for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other Interior agencies to use certain research. It also will set new data disclosure requirements for recipients of Interior funding. E&E elaborates on one troubling issue to the policy: that in some cases, such as the precise location of Native American sacred spaces, Interior traditionally seeks to maintain confidentiality. This order could undermine such confidentiality.
Environmental and scientific groups are critical of the order. Requiring that scientific data be publicly available means that some high-quality data are prohibited from use in federal government research. Specific issues of uncertainty regarding the order (and the EPA rule before it) include, among others: How traditionally confidential information on endangered species would be handled; and how information gathered during natural disasters in real time be considered after the fact.
The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) pointed out the following:
Raw data may include confidential information such as private addresses and locations of sacred spaces and cultural resources or even the locations of the last remaining individuals of an endangered species. A colleague said, "It's like telling poachers where the last rhinos are living," an astute analogy. Allowing such data to be publicly available could put individuals, species, and culturally or religiously important sites at risk.
As for real-time information gained from disasters, requiring the science be 'reproducible' is problematic. In fact, this directive could cause significant issues for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), which is part of Interior. The mission of USGS, among other directives, includes the monitoring, assessing, and conducting targeted research on a wide range of natural hazards such as wildland fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, landslides and volcanoes. These types of disasters, and the resulting scientific findings, cannot - by their nature - be reproduced.
The administration's continued push of this policy, both in the executive branch and the legislative branch, is troubling. Unlike EPA's policy, Interior's order is not subject to a public commenting period. It took effect immediately Sept. 28.
