The Bushies' grasp of reality has always been tenuous at best and contrived at worst. In 2002, a senior adviser to the president memorably chastised Ron Suskind for living in the "reality-based community," boasting that: "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." As we all now know, history would (unfortunately) vindicate his claim.
Putting aside the obvious, few agencies in the Bush administration have seen their roles and credibility be more diminished than those responsible for overseeing the country's scientific progress. Thanks to the writings of Chris Mooney, the author of the essential The Republican War on Science, and other investigative journalists, we are all familiar with some of the administration's most egregious practices: installing cronies in key agencies to "revise" or whitewash landmark reports, tightening control over scientists' public appearances and, of course, simply ignoring the (overwhelming) evidence.
On issues ranging from climate change to stem cell research, the Bush administration abjectly refused to listen to the advice of its best scientists, preferring to let its corporate and religious allies dictate the terms of the debate. For an administration that supposedly prides itself on delegating more authority to the states, it has done everything it can to stymie the efforts of California and other more progressive-minded legislatures to push a green agenda.
The official who has come to best symbolize the Bushies' contempt for rigorous science (despite being a scientist himself) and states' rights is EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. He has been heavily criticized by even erstwhile supporters for, among other things, rejecting California's ambitious auto emissions waiver -- going against the advice of his top subordinates -- and resisting the Supreme Court's ruling to label carbon dioxide a pollutant.
He is far from being the only agency head to have abdicated his responsibilities to political expediency, however. In fact, when judged against some past less-than-stellar picks (many of which had previously worked as industry lobbyists), his media policies have at times seemed less restrictive -- which, mind you, is not saying much. The picture is decidedly negative throughout the agencies, though, as a new report released by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) tells us.
The report, entitled "Freedom to Speak," grades the 15 federal regulatory and science agencies on their existing media policies and includes feedback from a broad array of government scientists to assess how they are put into practice. To no one's surprise, it concluded that the agencies' desire to "control the message" often contributed to the suppression of key findings and the outright censorship of its scientists; the report's grades, ranging from an F (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) to an A (the only one, awarded to the Centers for Disease Control), reflect this grim outcome.
Here's how the report summed up its more worrying findings:
In contrast, media policies at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission focus on message control rather than openness, and scientists in those agencies feel intimidated and unable to speak freely. Other agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, lack any central policy, so their rules about talking to the media vary from office to office. Both strong leadership and strong policies are crucial for achieving the culture of openness that allows both science and good governance to thrive.
Calls for more openness from agency heads often led nowhere, and the report criticizes the agencies for their conflicting or inconsistent media policies, which allow some scientists, but now others, to speak out. There has been progress made in reforming some agencies' communication policies, particularly those of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) -- which were some of the worst victims of the Bush administration's media clampdown tactics.
Overall, while there are some glimmers of hope, the situation is a low-water mark for our regulatory and science agencies. On this point, at least, both candidates have struck the right note, pledging to restore integrity and professionalism to these bodies and to create a new cabinet post or independent committee tasked with keeping the future president abreast of the latest scientific findings. A good start -- and hopefully only the beginning of what will be an arduous, but essential, task.