The State of California is unique in requiring all draft environmental rule-makings originated by the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) to undergo independent external scientific and economic peer review.
The mission of the CalEPA Interagency Agreement for Scientific Review is to contract with the University of California at Berkeley to provide to CalEPA, upon request, the names of pre-screened qualified candidate reviewers for these statutorily-mandated scientific and economic peer reviews of draft rule-makings by any of the six boards, departments, or offices (BDOs) that constitute CalEPA:
- Air Resources Board (ARB),
- California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle),
- Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR),
- Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC),
- Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), and
- State Water Resource Control Board (SWRCB).
Our responsibility is to identify candidate reviewers from a global pool of highly-qualified scientists and economists, then recruit them to serve the State of California in this important process. Conflict-of-interest determination of all candidates is managed independently by CalEPA. The current Interagency Agreement expires on June 30, 2021.