Political Manipulation of EPA Science

It’s no secret that the Bush Administration and the Harper government both censor scientists on a regular basis, making sure that nothing that could harm their energy industry bodies gets out. Scientists from NASA, NOAA, EPA, and Environment Canada have complained about this fact for several years. The EPA even famously cancelled a report on the environment and global warming after the White House gutted out all the hard facts on climate change.

Now a survey of EPA scientists on this very subject just came out, and it isn’t pretty!

Political Manipulation of EPA Science, by the Numbers

Here’s the whole cynical breakdown of the sad report, in the words of the Union of Concerned Scientists. (Note that not all respondents answered all questions, so response percentages are derived from different total respondents.)

• 889 (60%) scientists said they had personally experienced at least one instance of political interference in their work over the last five years.
• 783 (51%) said EPA policies do not let scientists speak freely to the news media about their findings. Scientists also shared anecdotes about being barred from presenting their research at conferences and their difficulties clearing research publication articles with EPA managers.
• 492 (31%) felt they could not speak candidly within the agency about concerns about the EPA’s work without fear of retribution, and 382 (24 percent) felt they could not do so outside the agency.
• 409 (43%) of the 969 agency veterans with more than 10 years of EPA experience, said interference has occurred more often in the past five years than in the previous five-year period. Only 43 scientists (4%) said interference occurred less often.
• 394 (31%) scientists personally experienced frequent or occasional “statements by EPA officials that misrepresent scientists’ findings.”
• 285 (22%) scientists said they frequently or occasionally personally experienced “selective or incomplete use of data to justify a specific regulatory outcome.”
• 224 (17%) scientists said they had been “directed to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information from an EPA scientific document.”
• Nearly 100 scientists identified the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as the primary culprit. In scientists’ responses to an essay question, “How could the integrity of scientific work produced by the EPA best be improved?,” OMB took center stage.

(Source: The Daily Green)

 

Tags: Censorship, EPA, Scientists