Hearings Completed for National Science Policy Study
House Science Committee Vice Chairman Vern Ehlers (R-MI) wrapped up the hearings phase of his National Science Policy Study on June 10, with the seventh and final hearing. Ehlers expects next month to have completed a draft of a “new, sensible, coherent long-range science and technology policy.” Previous hearings have covered how to improve K-12 science education and graduate education, government-academia-industry scientific partnerships and international collaborations, the federal role in funding basic research, and communicating science to the public. In most cases the hearings found ongoing attempts - some more successful than others - to adapt to changing times and new global realities.
The June 10 hearing focused on the role of science in regulatory and policy decision-making, and in the courts. The main topic of discussion was the iterative nature of the scientific process and how to account for that when making policy decisions. As Ranking Minority Member George Brown (D-CA) remarked, recognition is needed on the part of Congress and the American public that the knowledge base continually changes and policy decisions may need to be revisited in light of new understanding.
Witnesses John Graham of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis and Roger McClellan of the Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology used regulatory case studies such as automobile airbags and levels of chloroform in drinking water to illustrate situations in which scientific input improved - or could have improved if utilized - the development of regulations. All agreed on the need for unbiased, reliable scientific expertise to inform regulatory and judicial decisions. Mark Frankel of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) described a joint proposal by AAAS and the American Bar Association to set up a clearinghouse to help courts find qualified, independent scientific experts. McClellan urged that industry scientists and others with interest in an issue not be shut out of the regulatory process, but advocated full disclosure of conflicting interests as a way to avoid bias.
Acknowledging that scientific research is constantly evolving, Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) and Connie Morella (R-MD) questioned how policy-makers could balance that with the need to make timely decisions. Reproducibility of results was an important factor in assessing the quality of the data, McClellan said. He and others suggested that if the science was uncertain, one approach might be to try out regulations in small-scale demonstration projects before full-scale implementation. Frankel added that sometimes decisions must be made on available data and later reviewed as the scientific understanding progresses. Ehlers, himself a scientist, pointed out that scientific conclusions could be correct within current limits of uncertainty, but as further research reduces the uncertainty, the results may be proven wrong.
The discussion highlighted the importance of educating Congress and the public on the nature of science, Frankel said. Ehlers praised as “enormously helpful [and] extremely useful” AAAS’s Congressional Science and Engineering Fellowship program as a way of providing Congress with scientific expertise (see http://www.aip.org/pubinfo/flwshp.html for AIP’s participation in this program.) Brown decried the abolishment of OTA as a resource for Congress on the implications of new research and technologies. By providing expert testimony at hearings, he informed the witnesses, “you are the alternative” to long-term studies by a standing body such as OTA.
Additional topics included the optimal allocation of funds to regulatory efforts to achieve the greatest benefit, and the conflicts inherent if a federal agency has the responsibility to both perform research on and implement regulations in a particular area. It is very important, McClellan testified, to “build in safeguards” to keep the science independent from the regulatory mission.
FYI #93 will report on House Science Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner’s (R-WI) recent remarks on the National Science Policy Study.
