Science Use in Regulatory Impact Analysis: The Effects of Political Attention and Controversy

Abstract

Scholars, policymakers, and research sponsors have long sought to understand the conditions under which scientific research is used in the policymaking process. Recent research has identified a resource that can be used to trace the use of science across time and many policy domains. US federal agencies are mandated by executive order to justify all economically significant regulations by regulatory impact analyses (RIAs), in which they present evidence of the scientific underpinnings and consequences of the proposed rule. To gain new insight into when and how regulators invoke science in their policy justifications, we ask: does the political attention and controversy surrounding a regulation affect the extent to which science is utilized in RIAs? We examine scientific citation activity in all 101 economically significant RIAs from 2008-2012 and evaluate the effects of attention -from the public, policy elites and the mediaon the degree of science use in RIAs. Our main finding is that regulators draw more heavily on scientific research when justifying rules subject to a high degree of attention from outside actors. These findings suggest that scientific research plays an important role in the justification of regulations, especially those that are highly salient to the public and other policy actors.

Public Comments’ Influence on Science Use in U.S. Rulemaking: The Case of EPA’s National Emission Standards

“…An alternative interpretation of our findings is that EPA does not care very much at all about the public comments and rather just alters citations in RIAs to appease political elites and business interests. After all, a higher level of attention surrounding a rule by public commenters, interest groups, and the media does increase the amount of scientific citations invoked in an RIA (Costa et al, 2016), so we know rule-makers strategically respond to political controversy. This would suggest we are not uncovering influence per se, but merely reactiveness on the part of agency officials.…”

“…We focus on research cited in RIAs as concrete pieces of evidence that are drawn upon in the regulatory policymaking process. This follows recent work by Desmarais and Hird (2014), Witting (2015), and Costa et al, (2016), in which bibliometric analysis of policy documents is used to precisely connect public policy outcomes to scientific evidence. We ask whether comments on the research cited in an RIA result in revisions to successive RIAs.…”

The Science–Policy Nexus in Collaborative Governance: Use of Science in Ecosystem Recovery Planning

“…Recent examples of such use can be seen when actors opposing climate change mitigation search for particular studies purporting to show that climate change is not happening or is not due to human actions (Hansson, ; Sarewitz, ). Researchers have found that use of science to justify agency regulations is positively correlated with the saliency of the regulations to the public and other policy actors (Costa, Desmarais, & Hird, ). Kropp and Wagner () conclude that the use of science to justify prior decisions (symbolic use) is more prevalent at one particular stage of the policy process, the decision stage.…”

Shaping Health Policy for Low-Income Populations: An Assessment of Public Comments in a New Medicaid Waiver Process

“…Participants are more likely to influence policy through comment processes when they provide useful, substantive information, especially at the early stages of regulatory decision making (Naughton et al 2009;Costa, Desmarais, and Hird 2016). A better understanding of the commenters and the arguments they offered during the public comment process might provide insight into how the new policy is working and the extent to which consulting the public influences CMS approval of the waivers.…”