The American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) Scientific and Technical Evidence Act is not based on common sense. Instead, it is based on "corporate polluters' sense." This bill makes it more difficult to hold corporations accountable for their threats to human health and the environment. The Act appears to be innocuous by simply defining scientific evidence and expert testimony. Those definitions, however, have serious consequences because they significantly limit the evidence that can be presented to the court.

One common-sense guideline that would be excluded by the Act is the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle -- better safe than sorry -- states that regulation should be based on precautionary measures, even if a cause-and-effect relationship is not fully established. For example, schools should limit the use of dangerous chemicals and pesticides before there is direct proof that children are sick. This bill would encourage a "sorry before safe" decision-making approach.

This "sorry before safe" approach means we have to wait for damage to occur before we have "direct scientific evidence" needed to stop the harm. If a statistical correlation showed that dangerous chemicals in certain schools were hurting children in those schools, ALEC's model legislation would not allow that information to become evidence in a lawsuit at another school. ALEC's bill requires direct evidence of a specific pollutant hurting a specific child before the use of dangerous chemicals has to be discontinued. It's not using common sense to wait for a child to get sick before we act.

ALEC's bill makes it more difficult for environmental activists to bring lawsuits against corporate polluters. By not allowing relevant information as evidence in court, this bill takes power away from states, judges, and juries. ALEC would have you believe that their legal definitions are commonplace, but there are sharp divisions among the courts regarding the proper standard for "expert testimony." The Federal Rules of Evidence do not give any indication that "general acceptance" is a necessary precondition to the admissibility of scientific evidence. When dealing with our children's health, it makes sense for the court to consider and weigh all relevant information.

ALEC-influenced bills on this subject have been introduced in South Dakota, Oregon, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania this year. These states, and others, should be careful to protect their citizens, rather than protecting polluters, as ALEC would have them do.

Ran 3/18/02