Scientists accuse Scott Pruitt of stacking the deck against scientific integrity

MARK HAND at Think Progress

https://thinkprogress.org/lawsuits-filed-against-epa-directive-972c3a79978e/

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Scientists, doctors, and environmental groups are pushing back against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) efforts to purge scientists who had previously received EPA grants from sitting on the agency’s advisory committees. A directive issued by Administrator Scott Pruitt in October 2017 represents an attempt to fill these advisory committees with more industry-friendly officials whose belief systems align with his anti-environmental protection agenda, the critics say.

The Union of Concerned Scientists filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Pruitt’s directive. The lawsuit comes one month after Earthjustice filed a similar complaint challenging Pruitt’s attempt to remove scientists from the agency’s advisory committees.

In its lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the Union of Concerned Scientists contended Pruitt failed to explain why scientists and experts who receive similar funding from other sources — scientists affiliated with private industry or local governments — fall outside the scope of the purge.

By singling out academic members of the scientific community who are receiving EPA grants, Pruitt’s directive “lays bare its real function: to stack the deck against scientific integrity,” the lawsuit reads.

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