UCS to Testify Before Senate on EPA Science

June 8, 2009 -- On Tuesday, Francesca Grifo, program director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), will urge Congress to take steps to protect federal scientists and their work from political interference.

Over the past eight years, Grifo and her staff played a lead role in blowing the whistle on the Bush administration's manipulation and suppression of federal science. More than 15,000 scientists signed a UCS petition denouncing the administration's actions.

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The joint hearing, held by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and its Subcommittee on Oversight, will examine "Scientific Integrity and Transparency Reforms at the Environmental Protection Agency." EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson will testify earlier in the day.

"We urge Administrator Jackson to go beyond reversing bad policies from the previous administration and set a higher bar for the agency," Grifo, a botanist, will tell the lawmakers. "She should take concrete steps to secure the credibility of future EPA decisions...." Grifo will outline a number of steps the agency and Congress should take to safeguard scientific integrity, including ones that would improve transparency and minimize conflicts of interest.

Grifo's full testimony will available the morning of the hearing. UCS's Web site has summaries of UCS surveys of EPA scientists, examples of political interference at the agency, and UCS's recommendations to protect scientists and their work.

WHO

Panel 1: Lisa Jackson, EPA administrator

Panel 2: John Stephenson, natural resources and environment director, Government Accountability Office

Panel 3: Francesca Grifo, Scientific Integrity Program director, Union of Concerned Scientists; Kenneth Green, resident scholar, American Enterprise Institute; Lynn Goldman, professor and principal investigator, John Hopkins National Children's Study Center

WHEN

Tuesday, June 9, 2009 at 9:30 a.m. EDT

Source: UCS