Science in policy and regulation presents an interesting challenge in a federal system of government. On the one hand, we view scientific knowledge as immutable across political boundaries and indifferent to hierarchy of political jurisdiction. The scientific understanding of the impact of fracking on the environment, the utility of a new medical therapeutic or the risk of nanoparticle accumulation in the body transcends national, state or local government jurisdictional boundaries. One the other hand, our federal system celebrates diversity of opinion and regulatory experimentation based on that diversity. Under circumstances of genuine uncertainty, and in contexts of geographically constrained impact, this diversity of opinion may generate not only a Brandeisian laboratory of democracy, but laboratories of scientific discovery. However, when impacts cannot be readily contained, when should or can local diversity of opinion and belief outweigh a collective decision at a national, or even state, level?

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