Many items of interest and irritation in today’s Washington Post relating to the economy and manufacturing.

Why overregulate leading U.S. innovators? “FDA approval process faulted at hearings on medical devices,” covering last week’s hearing on medical device regulation in the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health:

FDA leadership is in the process of overhauling the 35-year-old system used to clear most devices, triggering a slew of reports and analyses aimed at influencing the agency’s plans.

On the one side are device manufacturers, who say that FDA reviews have gotten longer and less predictable, forcing some companies to launch their devices overseas to stay in business. They say American patients no longer have access to the latest medical treatments, forcing some to fly to Europe for surgery.

Infrastructure took only 40 years? “Md.’s Intercounty Connector gets ribbon-cutting as opening is delayed for snow”:

Given that officials once thought the Intercounty Connector would open by 1970, the fact that they finally cut the ribbon on Monday and then postponed the opening until Wednesday seemed very much in keeping with the story line. (continue reading…)

The Washington Post’s editorial policy, or at least its editors, must think it’s OK for the paper’s employees to compare people who question whether anthropogenic global warming is occurring to those who deny that an historic evil, the Holocaust, took place. How else to explain columnist Dana Milbank’s slurs yesterday followed by Tom Toles’ cartoon today featuring a “climate change denier?”

The term is an ugly attempt to silence people who disagree with the so-called scientific consensus. Newspapers should be supporters of robust public debate, and the yet the Post countenances the calumny. Very sad.

P.S. As a commenter on the Toles cartoon notes, how interesting that the insult used to be “global warming denier” and now it’s “climate change denier.” Well, of course the climate is always changing. No one denies that.

New EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson sent a memo to EPA employees last week stating her and the Administration’s principles on environmental regulation. Excerpt:

Science must be the backbone for EPA programs. The public health and environmental laws that Congress has enacted depend on rigorous adherence to the best available science. The President believes that when EPA addresses scientific issues, it should rely on the expert judgment of the Agency’s career scientists and independent advisors. When scientific judgments are suppressed, misrepresented or distorted by political agendas, Americans can lose faith in their government to provide strong public health and environmental protection.

The tiresomely tendentious Tom Toles offers us this take on science and politics Sunday.

The “science has been politicized” argument has been a popular theme of activist groups like the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The argument is a way of shouting down critics over policy disagreements, claiming the higher ground of “science” even when scientific disputes continue.

But you know, it’s the voters who ultimately determine public policy.

As Jonathan Adler recently wrote:

“Restoring Science”? [Jonathan Adler]

President Obama’s remark that his administration would “restore science to its rightful place” was both a shot at the Bush Administration, as well as a misleading statement. First, this comment wrongly suggested that science can somehow resolve difficult policy questions.  Insofar as policy differences are based upon normative concerns, science may inform our decisions, but it cannot resolve policy disputes.  Nor, contrary to Obama’s explict suggestion, will it magically address health care costs (as Scott Gotlieb explained in the WSJ today).  President Obama’s comment also reinforced the meme that Republicans politicize science, while Democrats respect science.  Yet, as I explained here, Obama’s selection for his top science advisor, John Holdren, is hardly someone to end politicization of science.

Science!