That's an extremely good question.
My perspective is that things have improved considerably. I feel that the quality of the status reports has improved considerably. I feel that the writing of them has improved. I feel that the assessments have improved as well, in large part because they are under increasing scrutiny, and rightly so.
The consequences of our assessments are such that they might infringe upon the rights of individuals, or the abilities of individuals or organizations, to do various things. As a national science advisory body, our reports should be heavily scrutinized. That's a good thing, it's an appropriate thing, and it has resulted in an increased quality in the reports since the passage of SARA.
It has also, I might add, increased the workload considerably as well. When I said that each report goes through a one-and-a-half to two-year review period, I wasn't understating that. It's an extensive review period. It requires a lot of input from a lot of concerned individuals, and thus a lot of time to respond appropriately to concerns that are raised during the review period. I think there's more that we can do in that regard.
That's all to say that the workload has increased, but I think the quality of assessments has increased because of the increased scrutiny.