An additional goal is "a stable, science-based regulatory system." The Clinton-Gore report asserts that the administration has "taken significant steps . . . towards accelerating the development of technologies critical for long-term economic growth and for increasing productivity while reducing environmental impact . . . [via] fundamental science." The reality is that at the same time that funding is down, biotechnology regulation, the bte noir of the administration's policies, has become increasingly anti-innovative, unscientific, and focused on negligible-risk activities.
"Government officials extol the importance of research to the economy, jobs, and quality of life, while their policies tell a quite different story." |
"The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has required unnecessary permits for more than 1,400 field trials of genetically modified plants, all of them of negligible risk to public health or the environment.
The Food and Drug Ad-ministration (FDA), which has a generally positive 15-year track record on...