From: "Mark Hessey" 

"John Cuccia"  wrote: It's not a
"peer" review when the Administration selects the
> reviewers.
The peer review process:

- establishes uniform government-wide standards for the peer review,

- focuses on the role of public participation in peer review activities, the
content of peer review reports, and the agency's responsibilities to
respond to the comments of peer reviewers,

- and requires disclosure of a peer review panel.

"Existing agency peer review mechanisms have not always been
sufficient to ensure the reliability of regulatory information disseminated
or relied upon by federal agencies. ... Even when agencies do conduct
timely peer reviews, such reviews are sometimes undertaken by people who
are not independent of the agencies, or are not perceived to be
independent. Simply put, the agency proposing or supporting a regulation or
study may not always be the best entity to commission or supervise its own
peer review. Nonetheless, some agencies sometimes use their own employees
to do peer reviews - a practice forbidden by other agencies' peer review
manuals." http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/pubpress/2003-34.pdf

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