<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:'bookman old style', 'new york', times, serif;font-size:10pt"><div>Hallelulia! Too bad it's not retroactive ... </div><div style="font-family:bookman old style, new york, times, serif;font-size:10pt"><br><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Byron Leydecker <bwl3@comcast.net><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> FOTR List <fotr@mailman.dcn.org>; Trinity List <env-trinity@mailman.dcn.org><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Thu, September 30, 2010 4:29:29 PM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> [env-trinity] Ensuring Scientific Integrity at the Department of Interior, Secy of Interior Order, 9.29.2010<br></font><br>
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<p align="center" style="text-align:center;"><b><span style="font-family:"sans-serif";">Public
Employees for Environmental Responsibility News Release (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.peer.org">www.peer.org</a>) </span></b><span style="color:#1F497D;"></span></p>
<p><b><span style="font-family:"sans-serif";"><br>
For Immediate Release: September 29, 2010<br>
Contact: Kirsten Stade (202) 265-7337<br>
</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"sans-serif";"><br>
</span><b><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"sans-serif";">INTERIOR
MAKES BIG STRIDE ON SCIENTIFIC INTEGRITY</span></b><span style="font-size:14.0pt;font-family:"sans-serif";"> — <b>Secretary Salazar’s Order
Could Be Transformative</b></span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"sans-serif";"> <br>
</span><b><span style="font-family:"sans-serif";"><br>
Washington, DC — The Secretary of Interior today issued a far-reaching
order that may significantly improve the transparency, reliability and
verifiability of its scientific and technical work, according to Public Employees
for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Interior’s action will
likely have government-wide influence on the Obama administration’s
struggling effort to craft a new system of scientific integrity safeguards. <br>
<br>
Today Interior Secretary Ken Salazar issued a “secretarial order”
which immediately becomes official policy. This order represents a
dramatic break from the agency’s checkered past and contains sweeping new
mandates, including – </span></b><span style="color:#1F497D;"></span></p>
<blockquote style="margin-top:5.0pt;margin-bottom:5.0pt;">
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"sans-serif";"><br>
• A ban on political appointees rewriting or altering scientific
documents; <br>
<br>
• Transparency that allows changes in technical documents to be tracked;
and <br>
<br>
• Whistleblower protection for scientists who report manipulation of
technical reports. </span></b><b></b></p>
</blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"sans-serif";"><br>
These and other changes in the Salazar order now must be reduced into specific
procedural steps for inclusion in the departmental manual and incorporation
into guidance for individual Interior agencies, such as the National Park
Service, Fish & Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of
Reclamation, U.S. Geological Survey and the successors to the former Minerals
Management Service. <br>
<br>
“We congratulate Secretary Salazar for taking a major step forward
in protecting both the integrity of government science and its
scientists,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, who has been on of
Interior’s harshest critics on this topic. “There are still a
lot of details to be worked out but if agency rules reflect the spirit of this
order, then government science will be much more transparent and trustworthy.”
<br>
<br>
Major elements of Secretary Salazar’s order reflect steps long advocated
by PEER and other reform groups, including clear rules allowing scientists to
speak to the public, lifting bars against involvement in scientific
professional societies and punishment for managers who skew technical data or
findings. These broad policy strokes, however, now must be translated
into enforceable internal processes. <br>
<br>
Interior’s action will also affect the stalled presidential scientific
integrity initiative that was supposed to have been in place in 2009 but is
still in limbo. Interior not only leapt ahead of the tardy White House
Office of Science & Technology Policy effort but set a bar that all other
agencies will have to meet, or else explain why Interior can implement policies
that are beyond their ken. <br>
<br>
“While this is a welcome development, we have seen bold rhetorical
commitments to scientific integrity before without follow-up,” added
Ruch, noting that the Interior order did not set a deadline for promulgation of
implementing rules. “Once the rules are in place, they must be
enforced. So, we will wait for the day when this administration punishes
one of its own political appointees for covering up or sugarcoating
inconvenient facts.” </span></b><b></b></p>
<p align="center" style="text-align:center;"><b><span style="font-family:"sans-serif";"> ###
</span></b></p>
<p align="center" style="text-align:center;"><b><span style="font-family:"sans-serif";"><span>Read
the Secretarial Order <<a target="_blank" href="http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&PageID=45590">http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&PageID=45590</a>>
</span></span></b></p>
<p align="center" style="text-align:center;"><b><span style="font-family:"sans-serif";"><span>Compare
the original Interior proposal <<a target="_blank" href="http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1396">http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1396</a>>
</span></span></b></p>
<p align="center" style="text-align:center;"><b><span style="font-family:"sans-serif";"><span>See
the stalled Obama scientific integrity agenda <<a target="_blank" href="http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1371">http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1371</a>></span><span style="color:#1F497D;"></span></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D;"> </span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color:#948A54;">Byron Leydecker, JcT</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color:#948A54;">Chair, Friends of Trinity
River</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color:#948A54;">PO Box 2327</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color:#948A54;">Mill Valley, CA 94942-2327</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color:#948A54;">415 383 4810 land/fax</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span style="color:#948A54;">415 519 4810 mobile</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i><u><span style="color:#4F81BD;">bwl3@comcast.net </span></u></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i><u><span style="color:#4F81BD;">bleydecker@stanfordalumni.org
</span></u></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><i><u><span style="color:#4F81BD;"><span><a target="_blank" href="http://www.fotr.org">http://www.fotr.org</a></span></span></u></i></b></p>
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