After enduring years of criticism regarding its scientific performance, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has received plaudits for its peer-review practices in a new report authored by a National Research Council (NRC) committee.

Strengthening Science at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Research Management and Peer-Review Practices commends EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) and Science Policy Council (SPC) for establishing effective peer-review policies and procedures that regulate the quality of agency intramural and extramural research.

"Basically, what that policy says is that all major scientific and technical work products used in agency decision-making have to be independently peer reviewed before we can use them," said Norine Noonan, ORD assistant administrator for research and development.

As a regulatory agency, EPA's stated mission is not to fund research but to "protect human health and safeguard the environment." ORD receives only 5% of the total U.S. domestic spending for environmental research and development--$530 million in FY 2000.

Successful environmental programs are based on sound science. And robust peer review brings EPA increased credibility in the academic scientific community, added protection against lawsuits, and, as Noonan commented, more effective policy. "The scientific and technical work products that we either generate or pay for via contractors or grantees are actually used to make decisions, they have impact," she said. "We have to have processes to be assured that everything we do meets the highest quality standards."

In 1993, the science leadership of ORD and SPC began developing and implementing peer-review training for program managers in all EPA regional offices. 

Central to the training is a user-friendly 1998 handbook produced by SPC to assist program managers who are unfamiliar with peer review. The NRC report panel terms this peer-review handbook "a valuable resource and guidance document."

Peer-review oversight procedures include an agency-wide database that tracks all peer-review activities and ensures the appropriate peer review is used in each situation. Spot checks and audits verify peer-review practices and gauge whether policies are being implemented properly.

The NRC report recommends one area of peer-review procedures be modified. Under current EPA policy, one person may be both program manager and peer-review leader for a work product--a potential conflict of interest. The committee echos EPA's own recent decision to separate the responsibilities of leader and decision-maker to protect the accuracy of peer reviews.

Dividing the peer-review leader and decision-maker functions is one of many refinements the SPC will include in its first revision of the peer-review handbook, to be printed in the next three months.

Peer-review policy improvements will continue through an ongoing EPA Science Advisory Board study and other internal controls. "We take peer review very, very seriously," Noonan said.

--Katie Winchell

Strengthening Science at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Research Management and Peer-Review Practice can be found online at http://books.nap.edu/catalog/9882.html