OMB Backs Away From Disputed Risk Assessment Policy
In an uncommon victory for the objectivity of the scientific advisory process, the Office of Management and Budget said that it would not implement a proposed new policy on regulatory risk assessments after a National Academy of Sciences panel said the policy was “fundamentally flawed.”
Last January the OMB issued a proposed “bulletin” (pdf) that prescribed new, centralized procedures for performing regulatory risk assessments.
But “the proposed definition of risk assessment in the OMB bulletin departs without justification from long-established concepts and practices,” the NAS panel said.
What’s worse, the proposed changes would mean that “agency risk assessments are more susceptible to being manipulated to achieve a predetermined result.”
Accordingly, the NAS panel recommended that the OMB bulletin be withdrawn. See this January 11 news release on the NAS report.
In light of the NAS critique, the OMB will not finalize the proposed bulletin, Rick Weiss of the Washington Post reported today.
See OMB Watch for further background on the OMB risk assessment proposal and the resulting controversy.
The U.S. does not lack ideas for improving its transportation system. What it needs is a research ecosystem capable of turning those ideas into deployed solutions.
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is excited to announce that Kumar Garg and Matt Lira are joining the organization’s Board of Directors.
A cohesive strategy to achieve two goals: (1) deploy the clean energy and grid upgrades necessary to make energy affordable and combat climate change and (2) create governments that tangibly improve peoples’ lives.
By structuring licensing-and-talent deals that replicate mergers while avoiding antitrust scrutiny, dominant technology firms are reshaping AI labor markets, venture financing, and the future of U.S. innovation.