Open the agency's science to public scrutiny
What the document says“EPA should embrace so-called citizen science and deputize the public to subject the agency’s science to greater scrutiny”
The chapter names data analysis, identification of scientific flaws and research misconduct as the areas where it wants greater public scrutiny. It contrasts this with what it calls scaremongering risk communications and enforcement activities. The chapter separately lists making all supporting studies public and open to comment among its principles.
What the document actually says“EPA should embrace so-called citizen science and deputize the public to subject the agency’s science to greater scrutiny”
Let the public check the agency's science. Ask them to look for mistakes.
The EPA uses science to set rules. The book says the public should be able to check it. It wants people to look for errors.
Restoring Gold Standard Science
2025-05-23 · 90 FR 22601
Executive Order 14303 of May 23, 2025 requires agency heads, to the extent practicable and within the agency's authority, to make publicly available the data, analyses and conclusions associated with influential scientific information the agency produces or uses, including data cited in peer-reviewed literature, and the models and source code used to generate it, and it bars employees from invoking exemption 5 of the Freedom of Information Act to withhold those models without the agency head's written authorization. That is the disclosure the chapter's principle of open supporting studies asks for, and the order also directs that updated scientific integrity policies provide for consideration of dissenting viewpoints. The fit breaks down in that the order creates no citizen science program and deputizes no member of the public to audit agency data, it runs to every agency rather than to the EPA, and it expressly excludes from disclosure the risk models used to guide agency enforcement actions or select enforcement targets.
The order makes agencies post the data and models behind their science. It also says other views must be weighed. But it sets up no role for the public to check that work. And models used to pick enforcement targets are left out.
2 agency rules
- National Environmental Policy Act Implementing RegulationsInterior Department, Office of the Secretary · February 24, 2026
- Financial Assistance Regulations-Conflict of Interest and Conflict of Commitment Policy RequirementsEnergy Department · July 16, 2026
Each of these names the order above in its own summary, preamble or filing. That is a fact about the document, not a finding that it carries out this proposal: it is one step further away than the order is, and what it does about the proposal is a reading nobody has made here.