Quote of the day: The NYT denounces more Bush-whacking of EPA science (and Paul Krugman looks at the disastrous history of BushCo outsourcing)

"Whether the issue is birth control or global warming or clean air, this administration has already acquired a special place in regulatory history for the audacity with which it has manipulated or muzzled science (and in some cases individual scientists) that might discomfit its industrial allies or interfere with its political agenda."
--from the editorial "Muzzling Those Pesky Scientists" in today's New York Times

And they're far from done:

December 11, 2006
Editorial

Muzzling Those Pesky Scientists

The Environmental Protection Agency disclosed last week that it had revised--stood on their head is more like it--procedures it has used for 25 years to set standards for air pollutants like soot and lead. The administration said the change will streamline decision making. Perhaps it will. It will also have the further effect of decreasing the role of science in policy making while increasing the influence of the agency's political appointees.

This is disheartening, but not surprising. Whether the issue is birth control or global warming or clean air, this administration has already acquired a special place in regulatory history for the audacity with which it has manipulated or muzzled science (and in some cases individual scientists) that might discomfit its industrial allies or interfere with its political agenda.

The E.P.A. is required every five years to review scientific research and set new exposure levels for six pollutants identified as hazardous to human health. Normally, recommendations are first solicited from two groups of scientists: professional staff members inside the agency and independent outside scientists. Those recommendations are then sent to the department's senior officers--nearly all political appointees--who shape departmental policy and then send it to the White House and Office of Management and Budget for clearance.

Under the new process, initial reviews will be done by staff scientists and political appointees, who together will produce a synopsis of "policy-relevant" science--which sounds ominously like science tailored to predetermined policy outcomes. The independent scientists, meanwhile, will be frozen out until the very end, when they will be allowed to comment on proposals that will have already generated considerable momentum.

The betting among environmental groups is that these new procedures will lead to weaker air quality standards more in keeping with industry objectives--indeed, the American Petroleum Institute is already claiming credit for some of the changes. The new procedures will also help spare the agency the sort of public embarrassment it suffered in October, when its final standards for soot turned out to be far weaker than those recommended earlier (and virtually unanimously) by its staff scientists and the outside consultants.

Under the new process, when the E.P.A. considers how it will set air pollution standards, the only debate it will have is with itself.

EPA ADDENDUM--And they're still not done

A DWT reader has added this chilling bit of information:

The Union of Concerned Scientists reports that the EPA is now closing its libraries, and removing the information to warehouses where it cannot be searched, or destroying it.

They request calls to the EPA administrator to protest the action and to request that information be saved for needed scientific research.


ALSO TALKING--Krugman on W the "Outsourcer in Chief"

"According to U.S. News & World Report," writes Krugman,* "President Bush has told aides that he won't respond in detail to the Iraq Study Group's report because he doesn't want to 'outsource' the role of commander in chief.

"That's pretty ironic. You see, outsourcing of the government's responsibilities--not to panels of supposed wise men, but to private companies with the right connections--has been one of the hallmarks of his administration. And privatization through outsourcing is one reason the administration has failed on so many fronts."

Krugman runs through some choice examples:

• The Coast Guard's $17 billion "modernization" program, where the job of planning, supervising and delivering the new vessels and helicopters was turned over to megacontractors Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.

The result? Expensive ships that aren't seaworthy. The Coast Guard ignored "repeated warnings from its own engineers that the boats and ships were poorly designed and perhaps unsafe," while "the contractors failed to fulfill their obligation to make sure the government got the best price, frequently steering work to their subsidiaries or business partners instead of competitors."

• Training a new police force in Afghanistan was outsourced to DynCorp International, and--

When conducting a recent review, auditors couldn't even find a copy of DynCorp's contract to see what it called for. And $1.1 billion later, Afghanistan still doesn't have an effective police training program.

• Reconstruction of Iraq was turned over to private contractors almost without oversight. "The only plan," Government Executive magazine reported in July 2004, "appears to have been to let the private sector manage nation-building, mostly on their own."

Krugman adds: "We all know how that turned out."

• "Many responsibilities" of FEMA were outsourced:

For example, the job of evacuating people from disaster areas was given to a trucking logistics firm, Landstar Express America. When Hurricane Katrina struck, Landstar didn't even know where to get buses. According to Carey Limousine, which was eventually hired, Landstar "found us on the Web site."

Krugman sees a lesson in this sorry history:

It's now clear that there's a fundamental error in the antigovernment ideology embraced by today's conservative movement. Conservatives look at the virtues of market competition and leap to the conclusion that private ownership, in itself, is some kind of magic elixir. But there's no reason to assume that a private company hired to perform a public service will do better than people employed directly by the government.

In fact, the private company will almost surely do a worse job if its political connections insulate it from accountability--which has, of course, consistently been the case under Mr. Bush. The inspectors' report on Afghanistan's police conspicuously avoided assessing DynCorp's performance; even as government auditors found fault with Landstar, the company received a plaque from the Department of Transportation honoring its hurricane relief efforts.

Underlying this lack of accountability are the real motives for turning government functions over to private companies, which have little to do with efficiency. To say the obvious: when you see a story about failed outsourcing, you can be sure that the company in question is a major contributor to the Republican Party, is run by people with strong G.O.P. connections, or both.

"So what happens now?"

The failure of privatization under the Bush administration offers a target-rich environment to newly empowered Congressional Democrats--and I say, let the subpoenas fly. Bear in mind that we're not talking just about wasted money: contracting failures in Iraq helped us lose one war, similar failures in Afghanistan may help us lose another, and FEMA's failures helped us lose a great American city.

And maybe, just maybe, the abject failure of this administration's efforts to outsource essential functions to the private sector will diminish the antigovernment prejudice created by decades of right-wing propaganda.

That's important, because the presumption that the private sector can do no wrong and the government can do nothing right prevents us from coming to grips with some of America's biggest problems--in particular, our wildly dysfunctional health care system. More on that in future columns.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
*As usual, the full text of the Krugman column is appended in a comment.