Last March, President Obama promised he'd have a strategy for restoring scientific integrity to the federal government on hand by July 29. A full year later, federal agencies still have not received any new directives and some government scientists say that conditions have not improved noticeably since Obama took power. Obama made scientific integrity an issue in his presidential campaign, and his March 9, 2009 memo outlined a series of high-minded principles — advocating, for instance, for “transparency in the preparation, identification, and use of scientific and technological information in policymaking.” The memo also ordered John Holdren, the director of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to develop guidelines “designed to guarantee scientific integrity throughout the executive branch.” Obama gave Holdren 120 days. That deadline came and went. And Friday is its one-year anniversary. The White House won't explain what's holding things up. In a June 18 posting on the White House website, Holdren simply said that “the process has been more laborious and time-consuming than expected at the outset.” He set a new deadline, saying he would deliver “a high-quality product” to Obama “in the next few weeks.” (That was three weeks ago.) Holdren, however, also tried to argue that the directives weren't really a big deal. “There should not be any doubt that these principles have been in effect — that is, binding on all Executive departments and agencies — from the date of issue of the Memorandum on March 9, 2009,” he wrote. The hold-up, he insisted, only affected “recommendations to the President on what further instructions he might issue in augmentation of these principles in order to advance the goal of achieving the highest level of scientific integrity across the Executive Branch.” (Holdren's italics.) But that, people who follow the issue closely tell the Huffington Post, is baloney. “You can't enforce a principle, without a rule,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a whistleblower group that he describes as “sort of a shelter for battered staff.” Ruch's group is calling attention to the one-year anniversary of the blown deadline in hopes of spurring action. More at the link…. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/09/despite-obamas-lofty-word_n_641082.html added by: treewolf39
