Pacific Views

Another dangerous proposal from the White House.

They seem to have no shortage of them these days. This newest one would make the White House responsible for issuing emergency declarations involving public safety, health, and the environment. What this means is that the power to declare emergencies involving stuff like mad cow disease or problems at a nuclear plant would lie with political appointees at the Office of Management and Budget (a White House agency) rather than with federal bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency or Centers for Disease Control.

But another part of the proposal is more sinister: The White House wants to give the OMB contol of scientific and technical evaluations — or 'peer reviews' — of major government rules, plans, proposed regulations and pronouncements. Even with the current system where individual federal agencies control peer reviews, the White House has been able to do things such as strip any mention of global warming from a major EPA report. With direct control over peer reviews, it will be far easier for Dubya and his minions to tailor the information in peer-reviewed documents to fit the administration's political agenda.

On Friday, a nonpartisan group of 20 former top agency officials sent a letter to the OMB asking the White House watchdog agency to withdraw its proposal, saying it "could damage the federal system for protecting public health and the environment."

One of the signers, David Michaels, said: "It goes beyond just having the White House involved in picking industry favorites to evaluate government science. Under this proposal, the carefully crafted process used by the government to notify the public of an imminent danger is going to first have to be signed off by someone weighing the political hazards."

Michaels, a former assistant secretary for environment, safety and health at the Department of Energy, is now a research professor at George Washington University's School of Public Health. He added: "OMB is not a science agency. The ramifications of it attempting to insert itself into a time-proven system of having the most knowledgeable scientists available evaluate proposed policy or regulations is a disaster in the making."

Via AP.

More: For an example of how Dubya's administration manipulates scientific reports now, without the additional powers it wants, check out this item at The Nation's website.