News & Updates
A memorandum for the heads of executive departments and agencies on the subject of scientific integrity. The memorandum stated that the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Police shall develop recommendations for Presidential action designed to guarantee scientific integrity thoughout the executive branch, based on various principles, including "(C) When Scientific or technology information is considered in policy decisions, the information should be subject to well-established scientific processes, including peer review where appropriate, and each agency should appropriately and accurately reflect that information in complying with and applying relevant statutory standards". Principle (c) embraces peer review as an approach to be utilized in considering scientific or technological information in policy decisions, a process that the CIE has utilized in the over 100 reviews conducted on NMFS assessments and programs for the past decade. The entire memorandum can be accessed via: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Memorandum-for-the-Heads-of-Executive-Departments-and-Agencies-3-9-09/. The CIE organized one of two independent peer review panels that reviewed where NOAA’s Fisheries Service had used the best available science in its final biological opinion concerning the impacts of the water pumping operations in California’s Central Valley by the federal Bureau of Reclamation. More information is available via the following NOAA news release, dated June 4, 2009: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090604_biological.html
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