The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released its updated scientific integrity policy for public comment which will have major consequences for how the EPA conducts and carries out scientific activities, and particularly for how it protects EPA scientists and their work from political interference. Strong scientific integrity protections can prevent egregious attacks on science from occurring such as censoring or suppressing scientific reports, interfering with data collection, disbanding scientific advisory committees, and other kinds of political interference.
When scientific integrity is violated or science sidelined at agencies such as the EPA, it can have enormous consequences for the public such as diminishing or undermining safeguards against environmental hazards such as air pollution, toxic chemicals, and hazardous waste. Prior research has shown this…
Read the full article originally published at blog.ucsusa.org.