Rescuing Science from Politics: Regulation and the Distortion of Scientific Research

Rescuing Science from Politics debuts chapters by the nation's leading academics in law, science, and philosophy who explore ways that the law can be abused by special interests to intrude on the way scientists conduct research. The high stakes and adversarial features of regulation create the worst possible climate for the honest production and use of science especially by those who will ultimately bear the cost of the resulting regulatory standards. Yet an in-depth exploration of the ways in which dominant interest groups distort the available science to support their positions has received little attention in the academic or popular literature. The book begins by establishing non-controversial principles of good scientific practice. These principles then serve as the benchmark against which each chapter author compares how science is misused in a specific regulatory setting and assist in isolating problems in the integration of science by the regulatory process.

Wendy Wagner is the Joe A. Worsham Centennial Professor at the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, Texas. She received a master's degree in environmental studies from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, a law degree from Yale Law School, and clerked for the Honorable Judge Albert Engel, Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. Before entering academia, Wagner served as an honors attorney with the Environmental Enforcement section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the US Department of Justice in Washington DC and as the Pollution Control Coordinator in the Office of General Counsel, US Department of Agriculture. Wagner teaches courses in torts, environmental law, and regulation. Her research focuses on the law-science interface in environmental law and her articles have appeared in numerous journals including the Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, and Yale Law Reviews. She is a member scholar of the Center for Progressive Regulation and chair of its Science Issue Group.

Rena Steinzor is the Jacob A. France Research Professor of Law at the University of Maryland School of Law and has a secondary appointment at the University's Medical School. She received her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin and her J.D. from Columbia University. Professor Steinzor joined the faculty in 1994 from the Washington, DC law firm of Spiegel and McDiarmid. Prior to joining the firm, from 1983 to 1987, she was staff counsel to the US House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce Committee Subcommittee with primary jurisdiction over the nation's laws regulating hazardous substances. From 1976 to 1983, Professor Steinzor was an attorney at the Federal Trade Commission serving in a variety of consumer protection positions. She is a founder, as well as a member of the Board and the Executive Committee of the Center for Progressive Reform and the editor of the Center's book, A New Progressive Agenda for Public Health and the Environment. She has written extensively on environmental federalism, alternative designs of regulatory system, and law and science, publishing in the Minnesota Law Review, Harvard Environmental Law Review, Duke Journal of Law and Policy, Yale Journal on Regulation, Environmental Forum, and Environmental Law Review.