Scientific Integrity Act: Scope, Prohibited Conduct, and Oversight

The Scientific Integrity Act is a pending House bill, H.R. 1106, that would require every federal agency involved in scientific research to adopt and enforce a formal scientific integrity policy, bar political interference with federal science, and protect researchers who refuse to alter or suppress their findings.¹ Representative Paul Tonko of New York introduced the bill on February 6, 2025. It has not been enacted, and it has not advanced out of committee.

Why the Bill Was Written

Federal scientific integrity standards have relied on executive directives for more than a decade. President Obama issued a memorandum on March 9, 2009, directing the Office of Science and Technology Policy to develop recommendations for guaranteeing scientific integrity across the executive branch.² A January 2021 presidential memorandum reaffirmed and built on that directive and the OSTP guidance that followed it in 2010.³

A memorandum, however, lasts only as long as the administration issuing it chooses to enforce it. The Scientific Integrity Act attempts to solve that problem by writing similar protections into federal statute through an amendment to the America COMPETES Act, putting them beyond the reach of any single administration.

Who and What the Bill Covers

The bill applies to every federal agency that funds, conducts, or oversees scientific research.¹ That scope reaches agencies like NASA, the EPA, and NOAA, and it also reaches smaller offices or bureaus that direct research funding or make policy decisions based on scientific data.

The bill defines a “covered individual” as any federal employee or contractor who is engaged in or supervises scientific activities, who analyzes or publicly communicates scientific results, or who uses scientific information to make policy, management, or regulatory decisions.⁴ That captures bench scientists, the managers who approve their work, and the policy staff who translate findings into regulation. Grantees, collaborators, partners, and volunteers outside the agency workforce are not “covered individuals,” but the bill would require agencies to create a process letting those outside parties report integrity violations.

What Conduct the Bill Would Prohibit

The heart of the bill is a set of prohibitions that would apply to every covered individual. No one could suppress, alter, interfere with, or delay the release and communication of scientific or technical findings without a scientific reason for doing so.⁴ The language is broad enough to cover the familiar patterns of political meddling: burying an inconvenient report, watering down a study, or sitting on data until a policy debate has passed.

The bill also prohibits intimidating or coercing a researcher into altering or censoring findings, and it prohibits retaliating against anyone who refuses to do so. That addresses a recurring pattern in which a political appointee does not personally edit a report but pressures the scientist to do it. Applying that pressure would itself be a violation.

A separate provision targets institutional barriers to cooperation with outside scientists and to the timely communication of findings. An agency could not adopt internal routing rules so cumbersome that a study effectively never reaches the public. The bill adds a blanket prohibition on dishonesty, fraud, deceit, misrepresentation, and coercive manipulation in scientific activities, and it states that scientific conclusions cannot be based on political considerations.¹

Covered individuals would also be protected in sharing their research by participating in scientific conferences and seeking publication through peer-reviewed journals and other scholarly outlets.⁴ Agencies could still require pre-dissemination review of findings for technical accuracy, but only if the agency’s integrity policy lays out a clear and consistent process for that review. A vague or ad hoc review process could not be used as a backdoor for political editing.

What Each Agency Would Have to Build

Within 180 days of enactment, every covered agency would have to put three things in place:

A Scientific Integrity Officer responsible for implementing and managing the policy.¹
An administrative process, with an appeal, for resolving disputes about integrity violations.⁴
A training program covering both current and new employees on their rights and obligations under the policy.

Agencies would also need a mechanism for stakeholders to report violations, and they would have to apply the policy uniformly across the organization. Agencies that already have scientific integrity policies could keep them if those policies satisfy the bill’s minimum requirements.

Oversight and Reporting

The Office of Science and Technology Policy sits at the center of the review process. Each agency would submit its scientific integrity policy to OSTP for approval, and once approved, the policy would be made public and submitted to the relevant congressional committees.¹ Policies would have to be periodically updated.

The bill includes a notable accountability trigger. If anyone inside an agency overrules the Scientific Integrity Officer’s decision on an integrity dispute by going outside the established channels, the agency head must report that override to OSTP and the relevant congressional committees within 30 days.⁴ It does not prevent a political leader from overriding an integrity decision, but it forces the override into the open.

The Government Accountability Office would review each covered agency’s implementation within two years of enactment.

How This Fits With Existing Whistleblower Protections

Federal scientists already have some legal protection when they push back against censorship, even without this bill. The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2012 specifically covers disclosures about the censorship of research, analysis, or technical information, defining censorship as any effort to distort, misrepresent, or suppress such information.⁵ A scientist who reports that a supervisor buried a study or rewrote conclusions is making a protected disclosure under that law.

The Scientific Integrity Act would add another layer by explicitly prohibiting retaliation against any covered individual who refuses to alter or censor findings. Where existing whistleblower statutes protect people who report problems after the fact, the bill’s anti-retaliation clause would protect the scientist who says “no” in the moment.

Where the Bill Stands

As of its February 2025 introduction, H.R. 1106 carries the status “Introduced” and has not moved out of committee.¹ Earlier versions of a Scientific Integrity Act were introduced in previous congressional sessions and did not reach a floor vote.

Until the bill is enacted, the protections it describes remain proposals rather than enforceable rights. Federal scientists currently rely on a combination of agency-level policies, executive memoranda that may or may not be in force depending on the administration, and the existing whistleblower statutes.

1
Congress.gov. H.R.1106 – 119th Congress (2025-2026): Scientific Integrity Act
2
GovInfo. Administration of Barack H. Obama, 2009 Memorandum on Scientific Integrity
3
The American Presidency Project. Memorandum on Restoring Trust in Government Through Scientific Integrity and Evidence-Based Policymaking
4
Congress.gov. Text – H.R.1106 – 119th Congress (2025-2026): Scientific Integrity Act
5
House Whistleblower Office. Federal Scientist Whistleblowing