In Defense of Regulatory Peer Review by J.B. Ruhl and James Salzman presents a thoughtful, well researched, and optimistic case for the expanded use of peer review in federal regulation (including both rulemaking and administrative adjudication). It is a valuable contribution to the literature, and I believe we owe its existence, in part, to a happy coincidence: that one of its authors (Ruhl) was a member of the National Research Council's Klamath Committee, and that the committee's work resulted in a peaceful and satisfying resolution of the conflict between Oregon farmers' water rights and the endangered fish on whose behalf the government had curtailed those rights. In essence, the committee found that the scientific evidence was not sufficient to support a conclusion that water withdrawals had to be dramatically curtailed to protect the fish. This example is indeed a good illustration of the value of sound science in making administrative decisions and, in particular, of the value of peer review by disinterested experts.

It is not difficult, however, to imagine the Klamath case with a different narrative. Suppose the U.S. Department of the Interior concluded that water withdrawals did not present a threat to endangered species, and that the peer review committee had found that there was indeed a serious threat. Angry Oregon farmers would protest the resulting decision--just as angry Oregon loggers protested the loss of timber to the spotted owl. The experience might not have inspired the authors to search for "more Klamaths," as they propose to do in their article. Yet the outcome might have been necessary to save the fish, and might still have been a triumph of sound science.