There was a pretty disturbing story in the Los Angeles Times recently about how much trouble some government scientists are having in the Obama administration--which has not formally issued its promised scientific integrity rules yet. Now, organizations whose work I trust, like Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Union of Concerned Scientists, are going on record saying that there are some serious cases of science being suppressed or interfered with in various government agencies. I have not independently investigated any of the cases here, but you have got to take these kinds of charges seriously. Let's go through some claims from the Times article, to list and also to comment:
In Florida, water-quality experts reported government interference with efforts to assess damage to the Everglades stemming from development projects.
In the Pacific Northwest, federal scientists said they were pressured to minimize the effects they had documented of dams on struggling salmon populations.
In several Western states, biologists reported being pushed to ignore the effects of overgrazing on federal land. These sound like very serious charges, and should be officially looked into, if that is not occurring already. Let's continue:
In Alaska, some oil and gas exploration decisions given preliminary approval under Bush moved forward under ...