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Nature 412, 677 (16 August 2001) | doi:10.1038/35089233

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Politics defeats science at environment agency

Henry I. Miller1

  1. Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-6010, USA

Legislation intended to "boost science" at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — which was discussed in your News story "Congress hears plan to boost science at environment agency" (Nature 411, 405; 2001) — is being aimed at the wrong target.The agency's new deputy head would primarily be responsible for "coordinating the EPA's research portfolio", but its management of research, while dismal, is less a problem than its regulatory programmes, where policies seem determined more by environmental politics than environmental science.