OMB URGED TO WITHDRAW FROM PEER REVIEW

On May 14, 2004, NASW joined the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) in urging the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to withdraw its “Revised Information Quality Bulletin on Peer Review” as it could increase White House powers to prevent publication of scientific studies by bringing peer review of all federal agency science under the supervision of OMB.

The OMB documents describing the revised bulletin asserted that it gave agencies more leeway to run their own peer review processes. The revised bulletin also seemed to loosen somewhat, from the original, the White House’s grip over scientific information disseminated in emergency situations (e.g. whether air was safe to breathe in lower Manhattan after 9/11).

But many other parts of the original bulletin to which objections had commonly been raised by the 187 commenters on the original draft remain substantially unchanged. For example, it still authorizes agencies to let private firms manage their peer review — which exempts the peer review from the openness requirements of the Federal Advisory Committees Act. It also leaves OMB and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy with final say over whether peer review is adequate.

Industry groups, who have criticized the science behind government regulations affecting their bottom lines, generally favored the original draft bulletin. But critics created great stir in the press when a group of Nobel prizewinners complained, that the White House was systematically corrupting and suppressing agency science to suit industry supporters.

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The full text of SEJ/NASW comments can be viewed at www.sej.org/foia/index5.htm. (Source: SEJ April 21, 2004 TipSheet)