Meaningful Transparency At EPA: A Framework for Rationalizing Approaches to Promote Open Science and Data Sharing for Evidence-Based Policymaking

Abstract

In modern society, transparency about how government agencies operate facilitates accountability and oversight, thereby encouraging not just effective governance but also public trust in agency decisions. Within the scientific enterprise, transparency supports new knowledge creation as well as the use of scientific research in policy decisions. While the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken significant steps to operate transparently throughout its history, like most federal agencies, more work is needed for EPA to develop a holistic approach for applying transparency throughout agency activities. With the growing prevalence of the open-science and open-data movements, policymakers must give further attention to how EPA can and should advance as the agency plans for the future. Recognizing the array of laws, policies, and priorities implemented by EPA to take into consideration, this paper considers the extent to which EPA makes information accessible and useful. Whether scientific evidence for a scientific community or open data for the broad American public, EPA has an ever-evolving information-management role. This report presents a landscape summary of the various policies implemented by EPA, covering science-integrity, data-quality, and information-management policies as well as a discussion of EPA efforts to improve access to both EPA-funded research and non-EPA-funded research used in policy decisions. This report also applies government-wide initiatives and new mandates for evidence-based policymaking to EPA. This report offers a conceptual framework for applying EPA’s existing policies related to transparency to examine how policymakers might consider further modifications to the agency’s transparency approaches in the coming years. The framework describes how different types of transparency affect stages of evidence building and use at EPA.