Posted on behalf of Richard Van Noorden

Lisa Jackson, new administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), won beams of approval at a Senate hearing today as she explained how the agency had changed its processes to increase scientific integrity and transparency. But more could still be done to throw off a dark eight-year blanket of political interference in environmental scientists’ work, senators heard.

“In all my years I’ve never encountered an administrator who hit the ground running the way you did,” chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California) praised Jackson.

“It is my promise that scientific integrity will be the backbone of my leadership of the Agency,” Jackson wrote to all EPA employees in a memo last month. In May she reversed a Bush-era policy by restoring the role of independent science advisors in forming policy on air quality standards.

And she also wrenched back EPA control over a new streamlined and transparent process for assessing the risk of industrial chemicals. That process, known as the Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), was said to be mired by political compromising and interference from the White House Office of Management and Budget in the Bush administration.

Jackson’s measures followed President Barack Obama’s 9 March memo, which asked the Office of Science and Technology Policy to ensure scientific integrity in government decision-making. It has been asked to deliver agency-specific suggestions by 7 July.

Republican criticism of Jackson was muted – though James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) did announce that five senators had sent a letter asking the EPA to redo its “flawed” analysis of the Waxman-Markey energy and climate bill making its way through the House of Representatives. Jackson replied that she hadn’t seen the letter yet.

Francesca Grifo, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the EPA could go further to improve its transparency. One measure could be an agency-wide media policy to allow scientists to comment freely to journalists, probably with a ‘personal views’ exemption. Another would be for the EPA to routinely disclose more information on the scientific basis of its policy decisions.