(Bush dismissed this adviser from the cabinet.) The UCS also suggests that the next president repeal Executive Order 13422, which gave an obscure regulatory body known as the Office of Management and Budget a lot of control over how regulatory agencies handle science. Currently the OMB has the power to revise the findings of scientists within those agencies, despite the fact that the OMB has little to no scientific expertise. And finally, the UCS asks that the government extend protections to whistleblowers within the government who come forward to report on the very kinds of abuses the UCS has reported (often with the help of whistleblowers who lost their jobs or worse).

Hopefully the next presidential administration will relegate this report to the status of historical document instead of a warning about our future. Science is crucial to the management of the nation, and without it we're no better than a medieval kingdom.

Annalee Newitz (annalee@techsploitation.com) is a surly media nerd who is fifteen feet tall, and she has a federal agency science report that proves it.