Commentary
I’ve heard our president say countless times that the regulatory pathway of his administration will follow “science and the rule of law.” That said – a hundred times that said – I’m getting nervous about regulatory evolution in the Obama era, and the first signs that this administration may be getting ready to head down the road to precautionary – “what if” – rulemaking.
A good example is the EPA juggernaut that is C02/greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions rule writing. To say the science of climate change is controversial and equivocal and rapidly evolving is no overstatement. Yet we have an Obama EPA thundering like a freight train to regulate the heck out of GHG. You can’t help but wonder if the cynics are correct: EPA is on this road because the White House decided fear of heavy-handed regulation was the best way of forcing the Senate to eat the House-passed climate change bill. This strategy is equally driven by the U.S. passion to be able to “reclaim our rightful role” as the planet’s leader in the rush to cut emissions. So far, both moves have failed, based on a stalemated bill in the Senate and a whole lot of noise and no action in Copenhagen. Yet EPA is now bound to continue its rulemaking despite the obvious negative impact on just about every product and service we citizens consume, most particularly the food we eat.
USDA is this administration’s chief cheerleader and mouthpiece for the philosophy of climate change, yet here’s a department which has enjoyed for nearly a century the credibility that’s inherent in the “USDA-inspected” seal, an emblem that automatically said to consumer that the food is good. Now USDA is banging the drum for a world heading for an ugly end if we don’t restrict in a major and expensive ways all gases emitted by man or animal in any shape or form.
Then there’s FDA, an agency which for decades has taken rightful pride in being a science-driven entity, one which could stand apart from the political controversy, and make tough decisions based on the science and the facts, not on the chicken little predictions of activists who’ve never found a drug for man or animal, a medical device or a food technology they didn’t want to demonize.
FDA is currently challenged by a host of tough issues, including whether or not to regulate or outright ban BPA in plastics – read food containers – or when to approve transgenic food animals, or whether to step up and defend its own safety declarations for various animal health products and chemicals which have safely and effectively been used in food production and processing, but which have now become targets of activist campaigns.
To worry more about the political fallout from critics than the science of an issue is not only to ignore progress and technological achievements that can aid the planet, it’s to squander the hard-earned reputation agencies like FDA and USDA have developed over time as the “gold standard” for the world on tough scientific issues. I can’t tell you how many other countries routinely look to our FDA or USDA when dealing with their own domestic acceptance of technology.
We’re the nation leading the world in the approval of important human and animal drugs which have saved millions of human and billions of animal lives; we’re the nation that so far has nurtured and advanced biotechnology – one of the U.S.’s few truly homegrown technologies – an industry that likely holds the key to meeting the challenge of world hunger, but also the next explosion of medical breakthroughs that will prevent and cure hundreds of diseases.
To embrace the precautionary philosophy and practice of Europe would be a catastrophic mistake. In Europe, the science says one thing, but if the citizenry — and by that I mean the citizenry which knows only as much as the press reports from the non-activist side of an issue – says “no,” then all bets are off.
Research and development in this country would grind to a halt as companies now facing years and millions in research, development and approvals begin to look overseas for government’s that not only appreciate technology, they work to ensure its success. Take a look at Great Britain where they so took for granted their biomedical research community, they provided no protections from activist assault. As those companies fled the country, parliament scurried to almost too late recognize them for their inherent and economic importance. Say good-bye to more jobs and more tax dollars.
While I’m not one to generally point to Europe as an example for the U.S., in this case, I suggest we study Europe and make sure we don’t make the same “precautionary” mistake.
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