| Sumario: | Part of a special issue on science in the regulatory process. The Supreme Court, in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., assigned a gatekeeper role to federal district courts hearing cases involving expert testimony; but assigning a similar role to courts engaged in judicial review of federal agency risk assessments is an extremely bad idea. Having failed to rein in federal regulatory agencies by enacting sometimes strict regulatory-reform legislation, reformers are trying to secure regulatory relief in the courts by subtly granting a more activist role to judges, who are deemed to be more sympathetic to the objectives of the reformers than is Congress. The courts should strongly resist this call to reform protective health, safety, and environmental regulation to fit these judges' notions of the correct role for federal regulation in society.
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