Regulatory agencies aim to protect the public by moderating risks associated with innovation, but a good regulatory regime should also promote justified public trust. After introducing the USDA 2020 SECURE Rule for regulation of biotech innovation as a case study, this essay develops a theory of justified public trust in regulation. On the theory advanced here, to be trustworthy, a regulatory regime must (1) fairly and effectively manage risk, must be (2) “science based” in the relevant sense, and must in addition be (3) truthful, (4) transparent, and (5) responsive to public input. Evaluated with these norms, the USDA SECURE Rule is shown to be deeply flawed, since it fails appropriately to manage risk, and similarly fails to satisfy other normative requirements for justified trust. The argument identifies ways in which the SECURE Rule itself might be improved, but more broadly provides a normative framework for the evaluation of trustworthy regulatory policy-making.

监管机构旨在通过缓和与创新相关的风险来保护公众，但良好的监管制度也应促进合理的公众信任。在介绍了美国农业部 2020 年生物技术创新监管安全规则作为案例研究之后，本文提出了一种公众对监管的正当信任的理论。根据这里提出的理论，要值得信赖，监管制度必须 (1) 公平有效地管理风险，必须 (2) 相关意义上的“基于科学”，此外还必须 (3) 真实，(4)透明，以及 (5) 响应公众意见。根据这些规范评估，USDA SECURE 规则被证明存在严重缺陷，因为它未能适当地管理风险，并且同样未能满足正当信任的其他规范要求。