Controls on publishing research worry govt. scientists

The Bush administration is clamping down on scientists at the US Geological Survey (USGS), the latest agency subjected to controls on research that might go against official policy. The new rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists who study everything from caribou mating to global warming. The rules apply to all scientific papers and other public documents, even minor reports or prepared talks, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press. The requirements state that the USGS's communications office must be "alerted about information products containing high-visibility topics or topics of a policy-sensitive nature." The agency's director, Mark Myers, and its communications office also must be told, prior to any submission for publication, "of findings or data that may be especially newsworthy, have an impact on government policy or contradict previous public understanding to ensure that proper officials are notified and that communication strategies are developed." The changes amount to an overhaul of commonly accepted procedures for all scientists, not just those in government, based on anonymous peer reviews. In that process, scientists critique each other's findings to determine whether they deserve to be published. From now on, USGS supervisors will demand to see the comments of outside peer reviewers' as well as any exchanges between the scientists who are seeking to publish their findings and the reviewers. USGS Associate Director for Geology P. Patrick Leahy said the new standards were ensuring "the scientific excellence of USGS products." But the new policy has angered some USGS scientists who say the elaborate internal review of their work may impede them from conveying information to the public. James Estes, a marine biologist who has worked for more than 30 years at the USGS's Western Ecological Research Center in Santa Cruz, California, said that although he has not encountered problems in the past, he and his colleagues fear their work may be stifled. "I feel as though we've got someone looking over our shoulder at every damn thing we do. And to me that's a very scary thing," Estes said, adding that it will be a cumbersome procedure. "There's been no effort yet other than to intimidate everybody, but to me it's censorship.... I think they're afraid of science. Our findings on ecology could be embarrassing to the administration." But top officials at the Interior Department's scientific arm say the rules only standardize what scientists must do to ensure the quality of their work and give a heads-up to the agency's public relations staff. "This is not about stifling or suppressing our science, or politicizing our science in any way," Barbara Wainman, the agency's director of communications, said on Dec. 13. "I don't have approval authority. What it was designed to do is to improve our product flow." The Bush administration, as well as the Clinton administration before it, has been criticized over scientific integrity issues. In 2002, the USGS was forced to reverse course after warning that oil and gas drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would harm the Porcupine caribou herd. One week later a new report followed, this time saying the caribou would not be affected. Earlier this year, a USGS scientist poked holes in research that the Interior Department was using in an effort to remove from the endangered species list a tiny jumping mouse that inhabits grasslands coveted by developers in Colorado and Wyoming. Federal criminal investigators are looking into allegations that USGS employees falsified documents between 1998 and 2000 on the movement of water through the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada. The USGS had validated the Energy Department's conclusions that water seepage was relatively slow, so radiation would be less likely to escape. The situation at USGS parallels what has occurred in other government agencies in recent years. The rushed closure of libraries at the Environmental Protection Agency this fall has worried scientists and advocacy groups alike, who are concerned that the closures will hamstring EPA scientists and make it more difficult to enforce regulations. The Bush administration has also been accused of trying to censor government scientists researching global warming at NASA and the Commerce Department.