Science Advocacy Group Says NASA Should Release Results

Faced with considerable evidence NASA is withholding the results of a nationwide survey of pilots on airline safety problems -- fearing the findings would undermine public confidence and hurt airline profits -- the House Science and Technology Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday to try to determine why the agency has been sitting on the survey results for more than a year.

"Americans must have access to the results of taxpayer-funded scientific studies," said Dr. Francesca Grifo, senior scientist and director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "Federal agencies have a responsibility to provide the public with information that has public safety consequences. Whether or not information was suppressed for political reasons, this incident highlights the need for more transparency in the federal government's handling of scientific information.

"Just last week, the White House came under fire for censoring the Centers for Disease Control director's written testimony on the health consequences of global warming," she added. "Considering this track record, the administration should be bending over backward to make sure critical scientific information reaches the public." 

As ANN reported, NASA spent nearly four years to conduct telephone surveys of some 8,000 commercial and general aviation pilots, asking them about near misses in the air and on runways and cases in which air traffic controllers changed landing instructions at the last second. The Associated Press tried unsuccessfully to obtain the survey results under the Freedom of Information Act over a 14-month period.

NASA Administrator Griffin told the AP that his agency will reconsider the news organization's FOIA request. "NASA should focus on how we can provide information to the public, not on how we can withhold it," he said in a statement. The agency's research and data "should be widely available and subject to review and scrutiny."

Given the agency has been withholding the results for more than a year, UCS's Grifo was hopeful, but skeptical.

"NASA Administrator Griffin's statement that data should be 'widely available and subject to review and scrutiny,' is encouraging," she said, "if it ever happens."

FMI: www.science.house.gov, www.ucsusa.org