This post is part of a series of quarterly roundups on scientific integrity.
In the third quarter of 2024, the White House released a progress report on scientific integrity policies, members of Congress and President Biden proposed ways to limit Supreme Court harm, and contrasting visions of the administrative state received attention.
A progress report on scientific integrity policies
During his first week in office in January 2021, President Biden issued a presidential memorandum requiring all agencies to set scientific integrity policies into place, and establishing an infrastructure to support scientific integrity across the executive branch. The memo explained that safeguarding against political interference with science is essential for public trust. It tasked an interagency task force with developing a framework for scientific integrity policies and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) with reviewing agencies’ draft policies. On September 30, 2024, OSTP issued the first biennial report on the memorandum’s implementation. The report shows that although agencies have made progress on scientific integrity, they’re not as far along as scientific integrity supporters would like them to be.
OSTP reports that 19 of 28 agencies have released final updated versions of their scientific integrity policies; 25 have designated scientific integrity officials responsible for overseeing policy implementation; 15 have finalized procedures for addressing allegations of policy violations; and one-third have evaluation plans “in some stage of development and deployment.” In a UCS report released shortly before OSTP’s, Anita Desikan undertook a similar analysis of agencies’ progress—but she examined what agencies had made readily accessible on their websites, rather than what they told OSTP, and found that most agencies either hadn’t met all the framework’s benchmarks or didn’t make the information easy to find. She makes several recommendations for better protecting scientific integrity, including by increasing scientific integrity training opportunities and protecting employees against retaliation when they report or investigate alleged policy violations.
Advocates have also expressed disappointment that few agencies took the step of publishing Federal Register notices inviting public comments on their draft policies, and criticized some policy elements for failing to protect employees sufficiently. The framework calls for periodic updates to the policies, and perhaps future versions will incorporate the kinds of changes advocates recommend.
Looking ahead: As agencies revise their policies and release other relevant materials, the public can find links at a central Science.gov webpage.
Seeking ways to limit damage from Supreme Court decisions
Effects of the Supreme Court’s recent Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision are starting to emerge: By early September, parties or judges had cited the decision more than 100 times. In the decision, the Court’s majority overturned the longstanding Chevron deference doctrine and decided that judges, rather than agency experts, should be the ones to interpret laws when directions to agencies about rulemaking are not explicit. The potential harms to public health from this decision are extensive. The Stop Corporate Capture Act, which Representative Pramila Jayapal introduced in the House last year, would codify Chevron deference into law. Shortly after the Loper Bright ruling, Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced the Stop Corporate Capture Act in the Senate.
The Supreme Court’s Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System exacerbated the potential chaos by removing the time limits on challenges to regulations under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Representatives Jerrold Nadler and Lou Correa introduced the Corner Post Reversal Act to restore the six-year time limit for regulations to be challenged under the APA.
While advocates for science-based regulations were still reeling from these decisions, news continued to emerge about questionable ethical moves from Supreme Court justices. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Ron Wyden asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Justice Clarence Thomas reported in his tax filings the forgiveness of a loan made by a health insurance executive for the purchase of a luxury RV. Andrew Perez reported in Rolling Stone that Thomas recused himself from two cases involving the executive’s company but authored an opinion in a case involving a different insurer that benefited the industry as a whole. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced articles of impeachment against Justices Thomas and Samuel Alito for failing to disclose gifts from wealthy donors and recuse themselves from cases where they had conflicts of interest. She warned that the public “will not believe that these Justices and consequently the court they serve is working to uphold the Constitution and put the country ahead of their own individual self-interests.”
Noting that the Court is “mired in a crisis of ethics,” President Biden called for 18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices and a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court. The Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States noted the possibility of term limits, and a working group of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences elaborated on that proposal and selected 18 years for the term of service.
Looking ahead: The 118th Congress will adjourn in December or early January, so legislators have limited time to pass any of the bills introduced to limit the damage of recent Supreme Court decisions.
A dangerous blueprint and an alternative vision
Project 2025, the radical blueprint for a future administration from the Heritage Foundation and the 100+ organizations on the project advisory board, began garnering more public attention after Taraji P. Henson warned the BET Awards audience about it. Advocates for science-based public health protections had already sounded the alarm about the plan, which calls for eliminating large chunks of federal agencies and implementing the “Schedule F” approach that would allow for replacing career agency staff with political loyalists.
The 922-page Project 2025 document refers to climate science as “climate alarmism” and recommends eliminating programs that address it. It calls for breaking up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and restricting the work of the National Weather Service, which millions of people currently rely on for weather forecasts and hurricane warnings. It proposes “pause and review” teams to reconsider EPA rules and guidance that protect us from toxic substances. An analysis by the Environmental Protection Network found that air pollution standards finalized from 2021 to 2024 will save 200,000 lives by 2050, but Project 2025 puts such achievements at risk. The National Women’s Law Center warns of proposals to insert religious beliefs into medical and scientific determinations at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The American Public Health Association identified a range of Project 2025 proposals, from altering the Census to closing offices that address equity, that will harm public health.
The Center for Progressive Reform’s James Goodwin recommends countering Project 2025’s proposals for an authoritarian administrative state with a vision of an administrative state that enables public empowerment and shields against “unacceptable risks of harm to public health, safety, financial security, and the environment.” He notes that the current administrative state largely aligns with this vision but falls short of achieving it. A list of recommendations to bring the administrative state closer to its potential includes insulating career agency experts against improper interference and affirming the essential role of career public servants.
Also:
- EPA Scientists Said They Were Pressured to Downplay Harms from Chemicals. A Watchdog Found They Were Retaliated Against.
- The ‘China Initiative’ Failed U.S. Research and National Security. Don’t Bring It Back.
- EPA Opens Investigation into ASPECT Failures in East Palestine, Ohio
- Revolving Door: You are Free to Influence Us “Behind the Scenes,” FDA Tells Staff Leaving for Industry Jobs
New Resources:
- Environmental Data & Governance Initiative resource: Public Comments Initiative
- Environmental Protection Network report: Breathing Easy: An Assessment of Public Health Benefits from EPA Air Pollution Standards (2021-24)
- Federation of American Scientists resource: Advisory Committees for the 21st Century Recommendations Toolkit