The government responders to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill today released its report on the "oil budget" tool used to calculate what happened to the spilled oil. Unlike the version of the report released on Aug. 4, this one comes peer-reviewed and with methodology.

As we noted in our earlier commentary, the August report was criticized for not disclosing the methods used to reach its conclusions. As a congressional staffer wrote at the time, "Essentially, nobody can check the math."

Critics also noted the administration's claims that the August report had been peer-reviewed by independent scientists turned out to be untrue. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) administrator Jane Lubchenco acknowledged today, "That report was not peer-reviewed, and I was in error." The new report contains an appendix listing 14 peer reviewers and their responses to an earlier draft of the document – a welcome step to provide much-needed transparency.

Perversely, the peer review process delayed the disclosure of the study's methodology but not the conclusions. Chairman Ed Markey (D-MA), in an Aug. 19 hearing of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee, asked NOAA's Bill Lehr if the methodology would be released. Lehr replied that it would be – but only after completing a peer review process that could take several more months. The report released today is the result of that process.

Peer review is an important part of the scientific process, but it was a poor reason to withhold the report's methodology. If the administration was confident enough in the study's conclusions to release them publicly, then it should have been confident enough to release the methodology, too.

Quality control does take time, and there can be a value in releasing earlier drafts – particularly in a situation like the BP spill, where there was tremendous demand for timely information. But the tension between quality and promptness cannot be resolved by publicly trumpeting conclusions while their very basis is still under review and hidden from the public.

Science isn't based on assertion: it's based on disclosed methods that others can examine and critique. The public shouldn't have to take the government at its word. The administration should seriously consider the Oil Spill Commission's suggestion that government study groups release more of their underlying methodology and data.

As promised, the Environmental Protection Agency is releasing White House comments on EPA assessments of potentially toxic chemicals. Yesterday, EPA released the first batch of comments on four ongoing risk assessments.

In May, EPA announced changes to its Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS), a program that studies the health effects of chemicals and releases the findings on the EPA website. Under the new process, there are two opportunities for “interagency” review – that is, a chance for other government agencies, including the White House, to scrutinize and comment on EPA’s risk assessments.

The four comments released yesterday all came from the White House Office of Management and Budget. (Under the old process, OMB reviewed assessments, sometimes with detrimental results.) From my initial reading, they appear to abide by EPA’s stipulation that agencies only comment on the relevant scientific issues and refrain from injecting broader policy or political considerations.

The revised IRIS process required that interagency comments be posted on the EPA website. They can all be found here, www.epa.gov/ncea/iris/index.html, in the table under “New Assessments and Reviews,” then click on “Downloads and Related Links” on the next page. (For a fifth assessment, cerium oxide and cerium compounds, no comments are listed. I’m not sure if this is an oversight, or if no comments were filed.)

The whole idea of OMB review of IRIS assessments continues to give me pause. OMB is not a scientific agency, and it is unclear what value OMB officials add to IRIS. As I said, OMB and other agencies get two opportunities to review the IRIS assessments: once after EPA prepares an initial draft, and again just before a final version is published (after the assessment undergoes an external peer review).

What good does it do for an office in the White House to review a scientific study after it has been peer reviewed? Three of the four assessments on which OMB has commented thus far are in the second interagency review phase. For two of the assessments, OMB complements EPA for being “very responsive” to the peer review. But in the third, OMB included four pages of scientific concerns.

When EPA revised the IRIS process in May, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said, “The process will be entirely managed by EPA.” That was a critically important reform, because EPA should now be able to keep OMB in check. As long as EPA stays in control, there shouldn’t be any problems, but we should still keep a watchful eye on any OMB comments.