Here’s an interesting fact: Scientists hoping to be published in the journal Science are told in advance that they must agree to make available “all data necessary to understand and assess the conclusions of the manuscript.” The stipulation is commonplace in the scientific and academic communities, where research results must be transparent and reproducible to be credible.

That’s supposed to be the way it is for the federal government, too. Here’s how the policy is described by the Administrative Conference of the United States: Federal officials are expected, to the maximum extent possible, to “identify and make publicly available (on the agency website or some other widely available forum) references to the scientific literature, underlying data, models, and research results that it considered. In so doing, the agency should list all information upon which it relied in reaching its conclusions, as well as any information material to the scientific analysis that it considered but upon which it ultimately did not rely.”