This week, the Interior Department released a new policy to protect scientific integrity in the department. OMB Watch joined other public interest groups in submitting comments on the department's draft policy in September. The new policy attempts to address concerns, raised in those comments and others, that the draft policy did not go far enough to prevent abuses of the department's scientific activities and decision making.

As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency continues to hold hearings across the country on its proposal to regulate coal ash, a toxic by-product of coal combustion that contains lead, arsenic, and other toxics, industry representatives continue to make excuses and concoct ridiculous arguments for why coal ash regulation isn’t necessary.

Republicans are proposing a halt to all new major regulations unless they are first subject to the rules and procedures of Congress and passed by a vote.

This rollback-by-roll-call proposal is part of Republicans’ “Pledge to America” legislative agenda, unveiled today “at a news conference at a hardware store and lumberyard in Sterling, Va.,” according to The New York Times. (It’s ironic that Republicans chose a lumberyard to launch their plan to deconstruct government.)

Today, OMB Watch joined comments filed by the Union of Concerned Scientists and other public interest and environmental groups on the Interior Department's proposed scientific integrity policy. Unfortunately, the policy fails to address the full range of threats to scientific integrity at DOI, such as those evidenced by abuses at the former Minerals Management Service.