2004

Tuesday, October 12th

7:30pm

Bush Science

THIS EVENT WILL BE WEBCAST LIVE. PLEASE EMAIL QUESTIONS FOR THE PANEL TO knightsp@berkeley.edu

Panel will include:
David Baltimore, President of CalTech and Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine;

Kurt Gottfried, Chairman, Union of Concerned Scientists and Professor of Physics at Cornell;

Bruce Buckheit, former Director at the EPA Air Enforcement Division

David Guston, Associate Professor of Public Policy at Rutgers and director of the Center for Responsible Innovation

Andrew Eller, Biologist, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Moderator: Michael Pollan, Professor at the Graduate School of Journalism

About the Panelists:


David Baltimore
After receiving his Ph.D. in 1964, Baltimors early scientific investigations focused on questions about the relationship between DNA and RNA in a cels internal functionspecifically, on how cancer-causing RNA viruses manage to infect a healthy cell. One result of this research was the identification of the enzyme reverse transcriptase. Baltimore shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in medicine for this discovery, which has greatly expanded scientist understanding of retroviruses like HIV.


Baltimore served as founding director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT from 1982 until 1990. An early advocate of federal AIDS research, he was appointed in 1996 to head the National Institutes of Health AIDS Vaccine Research Committee. Since 1997 he has been the president of California Institute of Technology.


For more information:
http://president.caltech.edu/bio.html


Science Magazine Editorial: Science and the Bush Administration
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/305/5692/1873

Bruce C. Buckheit
From 1996 to December, 2003, Bruce Buckheit was Director of the Air Enforcement Division in EPs Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. The Air Enforcement Division is responsible for major case development and prosecution as well as policy development and national program management respecting stationary sources regulated under the Clean Air Act.


Buckheit retired from his EPA post after, in November, 2003, the EPA told its enforcement staff to cease investigations on all coal fired utilities, unless, Buckheit saysthe enforcement staff had reason to believe that the facility had conducted activities that would violate thenew rule rules he says werehatched at the White Hous without input from the professional and scientific staff at EPA. Buckheit now works as an environmental consultant.

For more information:
Testimony of Bruce Buckheit before The Democratic Policy Committee February 6, 2004
http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/hearings/hearing11/buckheit.pdf
EPA Air Wars
By Alina Tugend
http://www.governmentexecutive.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=28549&printerfriendlyVers=1&

Andrew Eller
Andrew C. Eller, Jr. has been an employee with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) for 17 years and has spent 10 years working in the Florida panther recovery program. He co-authored an article titled Ì¢‰âÒEvaluating Impacts to Florida Panther Habitat: How Porous is the Umbrella?Ì¢‰âÂå published March 2004 in the journal Southeastern Naturalist. In May 2004, Eller filed a Data Quality Act (DQA) complaint against the USFWS, charging the agency knowingly used and disseminated faulty scientific data to set Endangered Species Act policy. In July 2004, agency officials announced their intention to fire Eller for Ì¢‰âÒunacceptableÌ¢‰âÂå job performance. In August 2004, a Federal judge ruled that the USFWS had acted in an Ì¢‰âÒarbitrary and capriciousÌ¢‰âÂå manner when it Ì¢‰âÒfailed to articulate a rational connection between the record of facts and itÌ¢‰â‰ã¢s Ì¢‰âÂèÏno jeopardyÌ¢‰â‰㢠decisionÌ¢‰âÂå on a development project located in Florida panther habitat. The judgeÌ¢‰â‰ã¢s ruling vindicates EllerÌ¢‰â‰ã¢s DQA complaint. Eller has appealed the USFWSÌ¢‰â‰ã¢s proposal to remove him from the agency.

For more information:
http://peer.org/FWS/panthercampaign.html

Eller’s Data Quality Act Challenge to U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Documents Pertaining to the Survival and Recovery of the Florida Panther:
http://peer.org/florida/pantherDQchallenge.htm

Kurt Gottfried
Kurt Gottfried, is emeritus professor of physics at Cornell University. Dr. Gottfried has served on the senior staff of the European Center for Nuclear Research in Geneva and is a former chair of the Division of Particles and Fields of the American Physical Society. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations. A cofounder of UCS, he has served on the board since its inception and led the UCS critique of the “Star Wars” program. He is the author of Quantum Mechanics and Concepts of Particle Physics, and senior author of The Fallacy of Star Wars and Crisis Stability and Nuclear War.

For more information:
Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policymaking
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_environment/rsi/page.cfm?pageID=1320


David H. Guston
David H. Guston is currently Associate Professor of Public Policy at Rutgers University, where he also directs the Public Policy Program and the recently created Center for Responsible Innovation. In January, he will join the faculty at Arizona State University, where he will be Professor of Political Science and Associate Director of ASU’s Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes. His book, “Between Politics and Science: Assuring the Integrity and Productivity of Research,” received the 2002 Don K. Price Prize by the American Political Science Association for best book in science and technology policy. He is co-editor of the forthcoming “Science, Technology, and Public Policy: The Next Generation of Research.” Professor Guston is North American editor of the peer-reviewed journal Science and Public Policy.

For more information:
http://www.cspo.org/ourlibrary/articles/DemocratizeScience.htm

SPONSORED BY

Knight Science and Environment program, Office of the Chancellor

LOCATION

Wheeler Hall

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