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war on science
Biden’s Imploding Scientific Integrity Initiative
It is difficult to see what about this administration's policy would prevent a return to the reign of “alternative facts” should Trump be reelected.
Oct 06, 2023
Following the tumultuous Trump years when scientific fact and fiction often clashed, President Joe Biden resolved to strengthen federal protections against suppression or alteration of government science. Just days after his inauguration, he issued an all-agency directive to bolster the scientific integrity policies that had proven so useless in stemming the abuses of Trump and his appointees.
This effort was launched under the hopeful banner of “Restoring Trust in Government Through Scientific Integrity.” Now, months behind schedule, the first revamped scientific integrity policy crafted under this initiative is rolling out. Unfortunately, it leaves a lot to be desired.
If finalized, this revised policy would cover thousands of scientists and technical analysts working within the behemoth $1.7 trillion Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), which spans a dozen divisions and includes nine separate public health agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, and Food & Drug Administration.
It will also likely serve as the template for new policies that are supposed to be adopted in all other federal agencies doing scientific work. Distressingly, among other shortcomings, this draft policy:
- Fails to prevent political interference with no provision for independent investigation of allegations of misconduct or sanctions for meddling by political appointees;
- Lacks any meaningful legal protections for scientists doing controversial work that may conflict with an agency’s political agenda;
- Contains few safeguards against scientific work being altered or suppressed, such as defined clearance procedures for approving technical publications or presentations;
- Does not apply to grantees and, in agencies such as the NIH, much of the scientific work is done under grants; and
- Does not allow public scrutiny of conflict of interest waivers granted to industry members of federal advisory committees, allowing these key scientific bodies to be stacked with little outside scrutiny. First Biden Scientific Integrity Policy Falls Well Short (peer.org)
Under this proposed policy, every aspect of enforcing scientific integrity principles would remain a captive of the political process inside the agencies. Thus, it is difficult to see what about this policy would prevent a return to the reign of “alternative facts” should Trump be reelected. Moreover, in the unlikely event that it did prove restrictive, a reelected Trump could simply rescind it, just as he did so many other Obama-era policies.
One core problem was the White House “framework” for this policy, issued earlier this year. Ths framework was composed largely by the same agency scientific integrity officers who presided over the Obama-era policies which had proven so ineffectual under Trump.
As a result, the organizing principle behind both the HHS draft and the White House framework appears to be bureaucratic self-protection. That explains the lack of transparency pervasive throughout the draft HHS policy which, tellingly, stipulates that “all descriptions of investigations and appeals will be anonymized.”
How is public trust in the credibility of government science supposed to be enhanced by closed-door investigations overseen by officials named by political appointees and reported to the public only in “anonymized” versions?
Perhaps one reason for these disappointing results is that it was overseen by the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy. Before the work had barely begun, the OSTP Director was forced to resign for bullying his staff. That left the reins for this project of an OSTP Deputy Director who last year was sanctioned by the National Academy of Sciences for misconduct and barred from participating in its publications and activities for five years.
Consequently, agencies were allowed to write scientific integrity rules in the most self-serving fashion possible. This, in turn, means that agencies will invoke scientific integrity principles only when it is politically convenient—an arrangement that defeats the entire purpose of this elaborate scientific integrity policy formulation effort.
Preventing this unfolding implosion propelled by institutional self-interest will require that the Biden brain trust radically change course. Rather than pursuing this murky agency-by-agency approach, the White House should impose government-wide rules that would:
- Create uniform interagency review and appeal processes for scientific misconduct allegations, such that individual agencies can no longer control investigations and sequester the results.
- Set uniform penalties for scientific integrity violations and require that political appointees found responsible for violations be publicly identified.
- Establish uniform clearance policies so that scientific material cannot be withheld from publication for other than technical reasons with enforceable appeal procedures to prevent research papers from being held in extended limbo.
There is no plausible reason why scientists in different agencies should be treated differently or have different rights. These government-wide rules would not only drive significant change but would also surmount the bureaucratic strategies where ground-breaking science is often strangled. Further, it may encourage Congress to codify these safeguards so that they may not be wiped summarily wiped out by a succeeding president.
Simply put, restoring trust in government science requires the ability of the public to verify that its trust is merited.
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Iowa Meteorologist Resigns After Receiving Death Threats for Climate Coverage
"I take immense pride in having educated the public about the impacts of climate change during my career," said Chris Gloninger of KCCI in Des Moines.
Jun 22, 2023
The chief meteorologist for a Des Moines news station announced Wednesday he is stepping down after receiving violent threats for his frank coverage of the climate emergency and how it could affect his viewers' lives—something he considered a mission as he regularly delivered news about the weather to Iowa residents.
Chris Gloninger joinedCBS affiliate station KCCI in 2021 after receiving recognition for his coverage of the climate crisis and the environment at NBC10 in Boston.
He immediately set to work connecting the warming planet with rising sea levels, intense hurricanes, and other extreme weather events in his work on air. In recent reports he has told his audience that the wildfire smoke that enveloped parts of the U.S. this month was the result of the climate crisis.
"A lot of these fires are gaining steam and seeing explosive growth because of the warming planet," Gloninger told viewers earlier this week.
Gloninger was accustomed to angry feedback from viewers who denied climate change or opposed the solutions that scientists have demanded for decades, but messages he began receiving in June 2022 left him fearing for his family's safety.
The first message read, "Getting sick and tired of your liberal conspiracy on the weather" and was followed by one demanding to know his home address so the sender could "give [him] an Iowan welcome [he] will never forget." That email referenced an armed man who had been charged with attempted murder after making threats against U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and approaching his home.
The emails piled up in Gloninger's inbox for several weeks, accusing him of being a "worthless Biden puppet" and a "conspiracy theorist" and telling him to return to the East Coast and "drown from the ice cap melting."
Gloninger shared some of the messages on social media last July as police investigated, ultimately arresting a 63-year-old man named Danny H. Hancock in Lenox, Iowa. Hancock admitted to sending the emails and was fined $105 for harassment.
The threatening messages were "mentally exhausting and at times I have NOT been okay," wrote Gloninger on Twitter last summer. "If you're facing this and need someone to talk to, I'm here."
Climate scientists have for years reported receiving violent threats and other hate mail for talking about how planetary heating is driven by fossil fuel extraction and is connected to flooding, drought, crop failures, and other events.
Gloninger told The Washington Post Wednesday that he sought therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder following the threats and said in a statement that the experience, compounded by some health issues among his family members, has pushed him to step down from his position.
"Eighteen years. Seven stations. Five states. I am bidding farewell to TV to embark on a new journey dedicated to helping solve the climate crisis," Gloninger said. "After a death threat stemming from my climate coverage last year and resulting PTSD, in addition to family health issues, I've decided to begin this journey now."
Supporters of Gloninger, including other meteorologists who have centered the climate crisis in their weather coverage, called him a "hero" for working to educate viewers about the emergency and expressed anger that he was pushed out of his job.
"Thank you for doing your job in a professional, evidence-based manner," the Environmental Voter Project said to Gloninger on social media. "We support you and we're so sorry you had to put up with such cruel and cowardly behavior."
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Experts Condemn Biden Admin's Proposed 'Gag Rule' for Federal Scientists
"This restriction on discussing the implications of research has no place in a scientific integrity policy," said one government accountability expert.
Feb 10, 2023
Scientists and government oversight watchdogs are expressing alarm over new language in the White House's "scientific integrity" framework, which one group said amounts to a "gag rule" that would harm federal researchers' ability to study issues including the climate emergency and public health threats.
As The Guardianreported Friday, a new draft of the revised Framework for Federal Scientific Integrity Policy and Practice was released by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) last month, but went largely unreported by the press.
The policy reads:
[Agency] scientists shall refrain from making or publishing statements that could be construed as being judgments of, or recommendations on, [an agency] or any other federal government policy, unless they have secured appropriate prior approval to do so. Such communications shall remain within the bounds of their scientific or technological findings, unless specifically otherwise authorized.
Jeff Ruch, Pacific director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), said in a statement after the framework was released that the policy is "unconstitutional" and "serves no discernible purpose" other than muzzling federal scientists whose research pertains to issues that the scientific community has criticized President Joe Biden and previous administrations for, such as allowing planet-heating fossil fuel extraction to continue.
"This restriction on discussing the implications of research has no place in a scientific integrity policy," said Ruch in a statement late last month. "Typically, it is only scientific research that has policy implications that is at risk of suppression or political manipulation."
"Government scientists should not need to cast a profile in courage to openly discuss the implications of their research," Ruch added.
Dr. Carlos del Rio, an infectious disease professor at Emory University, and Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University, both noted that the policy could discourage scientists from working at federal agencies.
\u201c@CarlosdelRio7 \ud83d\udcaf\ud83d\udcaf\ud83d\udcaf\n\nIf the USG wants the best and brightest, it can\u2019t restrict their ability to share their insights.\u201d— Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@Dr. Angela Rasmussen) 1676034048
"Science is a method that inherently depends on transparency: reproducibility, open disclosure of data, peer review, etc." said Rasmussen. "Preventing scientists from discussing their findings—including implications for policy—hinders them from effectively doing their job... OSTP must reconsider this rule immediately."
Calling on the OSTP to rescind the policy, Ruch late last month outlined a number of scenarios in which the rule "could be used to threaten scientists or stifle controversial research across a wide range of topics," including:
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) research showing that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS or "forever chemicals" are migrating off of military bases due to inadequate controls could be construed as criticism of Pentagon environmental policies or of EPA enforcement oversight at military facilities;
- Centers for Disease Control and prevention research showing that dangerous viruses and other pathogens are at risk of release from federal wildlife research laboratories could be construed as criticism of weak biosafety policies;
- U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) research showing that water degradation is caused by overgrazing resulting from Bureau of Land Management permits on its livestock allotments could be construed as criticism of the bureau for lax permit and health standards; and
- USGS research showing that fish mutations can be traced to rising levels of unregulated emerging chemicals in our waterways could be construed as a judgment on EPA's weak approach on endocrine disrupters.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) had a similar policy in place during the Obama administration. As The Guardian reported Friday, a USDA entomologist who was part of a 2014 study on protecting biodiversity among insects was barred from speaking at a conference about the issue.
"Citing the rule, the USDA's political leadership, then under Tom Vilsack, an Obama appointee, ordered Lundgren to remove his name from the study," the newspaper reported.
In addition to the new "gag rule," PEER said, the White House neglected to include in the revised framework procedures that would protect career scientists for "retaliation for presenting findings that may conflict with an administration's agenda."
"In the past, agencies could suppress unwelcome scientific research and blackball the researcher because there was no rule against it," said Paula Dinerstein, general counsel for PEER. "The White House has the opportunity to create enforceable safeguards for scientific integrity but appears to be blowing it again."
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