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Education and outreach

Education and outreach

Governing science

03 Sep 2007 Robert P Crease

We should apply the same standards on science to Democratic politicians that we do to the Bush administration, says Robert P Crease

Under scrutiny

Many scientists see US President George W Bush as being bad for science, as has been made clear in numerous books, editorials and Congressional testimony. Although these scientists say that federal funding for science is at a reasonable level, they claim that his administration has rejected the advice of its own scientists, suppressed unfavourable reports, allowed ideologies to damage the infrastructure, and used celebrities as consultants. Apart from three of the 10 Republican presidential candidates – Sam Brownback, Mike Huckabee and Tom Tancredo – who do not believe in evolution, any replacement might seem preferable.

Be careful what you wish for. Consider the record of Bill Richardson, one of eight or so Democrats seeking their party’s nomination, to be decided next August. Richardson, 59, currently the governor of New Mexico, served in the Clinton administration between 1998 and 2001 as secretary of the Department of Energy (DOE), which oversees 10 national labs. While Richardson is lower in the polls than his Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama, his administrative experience and Hispanic roots earn him a following. Yet during Richardson’s tenure at the DOE, two episodes are disturbing.

Troubled times

One episode is the case of Wen Ho Lee – a nuclear engineer at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. In 1999 media reports charged that Lee was spying for the Chinese government. Although the charges were based on information known to be false, Richardson had Lee fired and was later cited as having leaked Lee’s name to reporters (although Richardson denies this). Lee was arrested, chained in solitary confinement and threatened with execution. He eventually won a case against the DOE and other agencies for violation of privacy. Richardson has declared that he acted responsibly, but others saw him as pandering to the media crusade and being guilty of targetting members of specific ethnic groups – and the Federal judge who oversaw the case publicly apologized to Lee.

The second episode concerns the High Flux Beam Reactor (HFBR) at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) – one of most important neutron sources in the world. Its innovative design was partly devised by its senior user, Julius Hastings, and its research ranged from cancer cures to superconductivity. The HFBR was closed when Richardson took over. While the reactor was performing safely, its spent-fuel pool was leaking a small amount of tritium-containing water. A decision procedure for a restart had been worked out that included a new Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). Although the leak was confined to lab grounds and posed no threat to employees or the local community, it fostered an outcry among the media and anti-nuclear activists (2001 Hist. Stud. Phys. Bio. Sci. 32 41).

An antinuclear group, members of which included celebrities and Democratic party fundraisers such as supermodel Christie Brinkley, publicly campaigned against the restart in ways that Democrats would now call “Swiftboating” – the term means an unfair attack and derives from an episode during the 2004 presidential campaign. The attacks used material that BNL scientists found distorted and even dishonest, including the circulation of false rumours of the incidence of cancer clusters around the lab.

Richardson met with the antinuclear group and agreed to its demands to extend the comment period for the EIS. Hearing of this, Hastings called Richardson’s office to ask for a meeting. Hastings was refused. Meanwhile, the completed EIS draft concluded that “the environment and public health and safety would be protected” in an HFBR restart – but the DOE refused to release the document.

Instead, Richardson met again with Brinkley’s group. According to a report in George magazine, a then-popular political periodical, Brinkley “reminded Richardson that his aspiration to be Al Gore’s running mate [in the 2000 Presidential election] – a job he hadn’t been coy about lobbying for – would be seriously compromised if he didn’t acquiesce”. According to the article, Richardson was left speechless.

Richardson then terminated the HFBR, thus aborting the carefully arranged restart procedure. He did not bother to tell the lab; officials only learned of his action through the media. Scientists were outraged – not just by the decision and the lame reasons Richardson offered for it, but also for treating eminent scientists as bumpkins who need not be consulted or even informed.

Richardson denies Brinkley had influenced his decision. Brinkley did not think so, and appeared on talk shows claiming responsibility for the HFBR’s demise. Richardson then came to Long Island to accept an award from Brinkley’s group, which was handed out at a pop concert given by Brinkley’s ex-husband Billy Joel.

“Remember the HFBR!” is unlikely to become a popular rallying cry. Richardson is surely banking that the public has forgotten his handling of the HFBR and in any event would not care much about the closure of a research reactor. Yet to those who do remember, the episode raises troubling questions. Would a Richardson administration be better for science than the current one? Would activism and ideology rule science policy? Would experts be consulted, or would fundraisers and celebrities lead officials by the nose?

The critical point

In the upcoming US presidential election, such questions will be important. For the Bush administration, inadvertently, has done a wonderful thing for science. It has shown the importance of political leaders who respect science: its infrastructure, its instruments, its experts and its data. It has shown the need to let facts dictate policies rather than vice versa. It has shown that robust science is essential to the safety and welfare of democracy, and of the planet.

When word surfaced that George W Bush had consulted blockbuster author Michael Crichton about global warming, scientists saw it as a cruel joke. We must therefore be equally critical of other potential presidents. The abuse of science by the left is as dangerous and despicable as that by the right. Politicians who damage our carefully assembled and precious scientific infrastructure for political gain cannot be taken seriously.

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