Bill Posey: “My amendment is about transparency and accountability. I rise to urge my colleagues to support it. When an agency…”

“My amendment is about transparency and accountability. I rise to urge my colleagues to support it. When an agency decides to write a rule or revise an old one, they are sometimes required to share technical or scientific information to support their proposal. For many years, scientific research has relied upon the peer review process to ensure quality, integrity, and objectivity of published work. Peer review is when scientists open their research to the scrutiny of other experts in their field in order to receive feedback, criticism, and ensure their conclusions are sound. Unfortunately, when peer reviews of information return unfavorable comments or raise unforeseen issues with the quality of work, some agencies have acted to silence or hide the critiques. This, of course, is bad science, and it results in bad public policy. A recent example of this abuse occurred during a highly technical rulemaking proceeding in which an agency relied heavily upon a single study that many criticized as profoundly inadequate. The agency commissioned two peer reviews of the study, which were completed and returned 2 weeks into the comment period for the public. However, after both scholars submitted highly critical reviews that echoed the concerns of the many commentators, sadly, the agency withheld the release of their work to the public.…”