EnviroWonk writer Samantha Hulkower attended last week's National Integrity in Science Conference in D.C. Check out her previous posts on the big event here and here.

After the day's first panel, we moved on to a discussion about Curbing Industry Influence Over Regulatory Science. This panel portended to be at least marginally more depressing than the previous one, seeing as how this administration seems to be little more than a series of revelations of how industry insiders and former lobbyists are shaping policy and enforcement.

Moderator Reece Rushing from the Center for American Progress pointed out that ironically, product recalls, food poisonings, pet deaths, etc. show the public the real need for greater scientific oversight of regulations, because who wants to have to risk a case of salmonella every time they eat salsa?

The takeaway point from this discussion was the Bush Administration seems to be missing the point of a small, unobtrusive government when OMB gets involved in virtually every proposed regulation, using political appointees to override the decisions of trained scientists. The arbitrary cost-benefit analysis popularized during Regan's term, to determine whether a project is worth investing in or to clean-up waste, does not make for good policy, and politicians should just leave important decisions, like how much carcinogen in your drinking water is too much, to the experts.

During the Q&A, an EPA pesticides scientist told the audience how she asked to take a training day to attend the conference, and her higher-ups said no, because "this is not a legitimate scientific conference." We think that's pretty harsh coming from an Agency that can't even get its emails read by the White House.

This inspired another audience member to tell an anecdote of a DOE employee who was scheduled for months to speak at a conference about the future of energy, and at the last minute was told he couldn't attend under any circumstances -- even on his free time over the weekend. Despite this being illegal (and immoral?) he was cowed enough to not attend. We think Senator Inhofe's fear of federal career employees is totally legitimate: who knows what kind of damage they could inflict upon the world by attending a scientific conference?!

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written by Rob Howard, July 26, 2008

In their defense, knowing what I know about EPA, having folks attend was likely as much a budget issue as much as anything else. The agency is strapped for cash & folks I know there are looking under couch cushions for change to implement programs that should be no-brainers.
Rob Howard

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