After almost three decades, the White House is looking to update the way its agencies evaluate biotech products. US Government officials in July directed three federal agencies to review and, where necessary, update their systems, which are based on a government-wide framework dating to 1986. Specifically, the White House told the Environmental Protection Agency, the US Food and Drug Administration, and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to develop a strategy that ensures the system is prepared for reviewing future biotech products and builds public confidence in that review process. The White House says it will commission the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to conduct an outside analysis, one that seems to coincide with a somewhat narrower NAS review effort focused on genetically modified (GM) crops that began in 2014. In a separate development last February, when officials of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service at USDA withdrew a proposed rule from 2008 to change how it regulates GM plants, the agency then called for a renewed consideration of these regulatory issues.