The source of Earth’s current extinction event is primarily attributable to human causes such as climate change, habitat loss, and the introduction of non-native species. While not all species may be saved from these human-driven impacts, there are some solutions that can effectively conserve others. In the US, the Endangered Species Act and other federal protections are crucial elements of such conservation. Federal scientists and their research, especially those working for the US Department of the Interior (DOI), play a pivotal role in guiding these federal policy decisions. Therefore, it is important that scientific integrity is preserved in their work. In October 2018, the DOI passed Secretarial Order 3369 "Promoting Open Science" which requires all scientific evidence used in agency decisions be made publicly available. We provide a historical analysis that details the basis of similar policies used to discredit scientific findings and the implications of this order for the listing process of the Endangered Species Act.
Results/Conclusions
Historically, policies touted to increase transparency in science-based decisionmaking have been introduced in both federal agencies and Congress. These policies include the HONEST Act introduced by the 115th Congress and the Secret Science Reform Act introduced by the 113th and 114th Congress. These types of policies can be traced back to a 1996 memo that documents attorneys representing the tobacco industry attempting to construct explicit procedural hurdles that a federal agency must follow in issuing scientific reports. Making all data publicly available can be problematic as it may include confidential information such as private addresses and locations of sacred spaces and cultural resources or even the locations of the last remaining individuals of an endangered species. We find that making such data publicly available is problematic for listing species under the Endangered Species Act, especially for sections 4 and 5 of this piece of legislation.