When the Bush administration left office, there was a palpable sense of relief among the nation's scientists. The Dark Ages, as many ironically referred to the period, were finally ending.

Climate change, reproductive health, pollution and maintaining the integrity of fish and wildlife habitats were contentious issues between the Bush administration and the scientists who assailed it for elevating politics and corporate interests above science.

As a presidential candidate, then Sen. Barack Obama criticized Mr. Bush for undermining science and making it secondary to his political agenda. Echoing Mr. Bush's critics, Mr. Obama cited the administration's ban on stem cell research and its shortsighted environmental policies as evidence of its fundamental hostility to science. Mr. Obama vowed that he would make scientific integrity a cornerstone of his administration if elected.

Within weeks of taking office, Mr. Obama ordered his advisers to follow through in the development of rules to ensure scientific integrity. A year-and-a-half later, the rules are still pending and Mr. Obama's promise remains unfulfilled.

In numbers rivaling those of the Bush years, scientists under a cloak of anonymity complained to the Union of Concerned Scientists of a culture that allows officials to interfere with their work and limit their ability to speak, according to a report by the Washington Bureau of the Tribune Co. If true, this is outrageous.

Water quality experts in Florida, scientists studying the effect of dams on salmon populations in the West and environmentalists who expected a more rigorous approach to reviewing oil and gas exploration in Alaska after the Bush years ended are disappointed. They didn't expect what they consider the Obama administration's indifference to the environmental impact of its decisions.

The Obama administration insists it is committed to giving science an honored place in White House decisions, but it has done a lousy job of it so far. Despite its rhetoric, Mr. Obama's White House has not moved quickly to reverse the anti-science culture still firmly in place. The long promised guidelines to help it ensure scientific integrity remain as ephemeral as ghosts -- and that's not very scientific, or competent at all.

Cartoonist Rob Rogers does "Rob's Rough," an early look at his work and his creative process, exclusively at PG+, a members-only web site of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.