Biden’s Rule-Breaking Integrity Official – WSJ

The Biden administration created the task force to “conduct a thorough review of the effectiveness of Federal agency scientific-integrity policies, with the aim of ensuring a trustworthy science system.” If this vitally important mission is to be taken seriously, the task force must be worthy of the public’s trust. That means holding itself to the same standards that apply to ordinary research scientists.

Ms. Lubchenco was penalized after she edited a paper for a scientific journal even though its co-authors were her research collaborators. One of them was even her brother-in-law, who was also her former doctoral student. This violated the National Academy’s code of conduct and the journal’s editorial policies. “I accept these sanctions for my error in judgment in editing a paper authored by some of my research collaborators—an error for which I have publicly stated my regret,” Ms. Lubchenco said in a statement.

It doesn’t end there. The journal retracted the paper in October 2021 following revelations that the authors made a data error and overestimated their findings. In other words, they were guilty of exactly the kind of thing the White House’s task force was created to address.

In January the task force published its first report, calling for strengthening scientific integrity across the government. Ms. Lubchenco was a lead author. When the report first appeared, an Office of Science and Technology Policy official told Axios that “there’s no evidence that Jane’s work with the task force resulted in any pulled punch on the topic.”

The report’s findings aren’t at issue. The point is that a leader of the White House’s Scientific Integrity Task Force has been implicated in the behaviors on which the task force seeks to crack down. Despite this, the White House has taken no action.

The scientific community has. In addition to suspending Ms. Lubchenco indefinitely, the National Academy temporarily banned her from publishing in its journal. (The academy appears to have revised its code of conduct in June to allow for temporary suspensions rather than expulsion.)

Such disciplinary action might be punishment enough were Ms. Lubchenco simply a research scientist. She isn’t; she’s a government official whose responsibility is to move the federal government “toward a more trustworthy science system to serve the American people,” as is stated in the mission of the task force she leads. A key part of this effort is accountability. The report states that integrity violations should be treated “on par with violations of government ethics, with comparable consequences.” What consequences will Ms. Lubchenco face?

The National Academy upheld the standards of scientific integrity. The White House should follow suit.

Mr. Mills is a senior fellow at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy and at the American Enterprise Institute, where Mr. Banks is a research associate for science policy.