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who are locked out. Skyrocketing subscription costs are forcing universities all over the country to cut back on their subscriptions, shutting scientists off from their lifeblood of peer reviewed research.

The FRPAA bill has been in limbo for over two years after being referred to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information and International Security. If the proposed legislation was put into the public limelight, brought up to date and passed, all federally funded research would be available for open access.

Government researchers make mistakes too. Controversial science and unproven research methodologies should never become the basis of far reaching, costly regulations without rigorous independent review by the scientific community.

When the Cato Institute published "The Case for Public Access to Federally Funded Research Data" in 2000, they were concerned that faulty science, conducted without independent verification, could become the basis and justification for ill-considered, costly regulations. "Without independent review of scientific data and methodological practices, policy mistakes are inevitable."

Government regulators can and have caused substantial harm to taxpayers and the economy. They are able to justify their actions because their scientific mistakes often go unchecked and unchallenged. Indeed, the EPA's handling of the effects of airborne asbestos is a classic case of flawed methodology used to justify mistaken regulations that have cost billions of dollars and hardship to millions with no clear benefit.

For 12 years, between 1978 and 1990, the EPA issued a series of regulations for removal of asbestos containing materials in schools. Suddenly, in 1990, the EPA reversed itself and said that asbestos should be managed in place instead of removing it. Why the reversal? The EPA has never explained but when Congress asked the EPA to measure airborne asbestos in public buildings in the late eighties, the EPA used proper measurement techniques and found no difference in airborne asbestos between the air in the government buildings and the outside air!

Independent review of agency sponsored scientific research by non-government scientists brings balance to the regulatory process and "has had a major positive effect on our knowledge about airborne asbestos, endocrine disrupters, the herbicide 2,4-D, the Dalkon Shield birth control device, and the diet drug fen-phen." (Cato)

The Shelby Amendment, passed in the late nineties "guarantees, through the Freedom of Information Act, public access to grantee collected data that are used in support of rules or regulations." But the OMB implementation excludes regulatory agency policies from public scrutiny and that should be fixed. (Cato)

We're at a critical juncture. The Internet gives us the tools that can lead to a scientific renaissance. All we need is the will to take action. A savvy presidential candidate could bring the debate out into the open, give real meaning to their commitment to an open society and transparency in government and help restore the checks and balances so desperately needed to bring common sense and scientific scrutiny into the regulatory process.

Learn more about this author, John McDevitt.
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