Welcome to Science News & Views. This forum will explore how decisions concerning hazard, risk, human health and the environment shape modern life. We'll do this by highlighting news events, recent publications, and current trends in the scientific and policymaking communities. We believe this exercise will illustrate how business and consumers are impacted by good (and bad) policy and suggest how decision-making may be improved.
To kick things off, we'll take a look at a recent interview with Richard Hubner about product safety regulation. In this Q & A, Rich argues that elected officials and their staffs are ill-equipped to micro-manage regulatory decisions concerning risk. Instead, they should establish coherent legal frameworks and funding levels for regulatory agencies, put them to work developing risk-based performance standards, and hold them accountable. Rich also urges legislators to get back in the business of oversight, using hearings and subpoena power to monitor the work of regulators--in an ongoing fashion, not just when high profile events compel their attention and intervention.
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