Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumEPA to ban some scientists from independent advisory boards
Source: Reuters
#ENVIRONMENT OCTOBER 31, 2017 / 10:56 AM / UPDATED 8 MINUTES AGO
EPA to ban some scientists from independent advisory boards
Valerie Volcovici
3 MIN READ
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will announce on Tuesday it will bar certain scientists from serving on its independent advisory boards, according to people familiar with the plan, a move critics say could open the way to more industry-friendly advisors on the panels.
The EPA will bar scientists who have won agency-awarded grants in the past, billing the step as a way to preserve the independence of the boards, which provide the scientific input for agency decisions around pollution and climate change regulation.
An EPA spokesman declined to comment.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt signaled the move during a speech last week at the conservative Heritage Foundation, when he questioned the independence of scientists who have won past EPA research grants, and promised to fix the situation.
-snip-
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-epa-science/epa-to-ban-some-scientists-from-independent-advisory-boards-idUSKBN1D020O
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,600 posts)Somewhat hyperbolic:
Climate change deniers are celebrating.
Rebecca LeberOct. 31, 2017 5:29 PM
....
The CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Rush Holt denounced the decision in a statement. Leading scientific experts who are conducting environmental science research should not be prohibited from participating on EPA science adviser boards and committees if they have met the appropriate financial conflict of interest policy, he said. Science and the use of science in evidence-based policymaking cannot thrive when policymakers use politics as a pretext to attack scientific objectivity. Given its desire to limit expert perspectives and the role of scientific information, we question whether the EPA can continue to pursue its core mission to protect human health and the environment.
The full list of scientists the EPA will name to these committees wont be made public until next week, but the Washington Post reports that a list it reviewed includes voices from regulated industries, academics and environmental regulators from conservative states, and researchers who have a history of critiquing the science and economics underpinning tighter environmental regulations.
Rational:
By Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney October 30
Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, is poised to make wholesale changes to the agencys key advisory group by jettisoning scientists who have received grants from the EPA and replacing them with industry experts and state government officials.
The move represents a fundamental shift, one that could change the scientific and technical advice that historically has guided the agency as it crafts environmental regulations. The decision to bar any researcher who receives EPA grant money from serving as an adviser appears to be unprecedented.
A list of expected appointees to the EPAs Science Advisory Board, obtained by The Washington Post from multiple individuals familiar with the appointments, include several categories of experts voices from regulated industries, academics and environmental regulators from conservative states, and researchers who have a history of critiquing the science and economics underpinning tighter environmental regulations. They would replace a number of scientists who currently have agency grants and whose terms are expiring. ... The formal list of appointees is scheduled to be announced Tuesday.
....
The EPA could not immediately be reached for comment, but Pruitt suggested in a speech this month at the Heritage Foundation that he planned to rid the agencys scientific advisory boards of researchers with EPA funding. He argued that the current structure raises questions about their independence, though he did not voice similar objections to industry-funded scientists.
....
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,600 posts)Children need to breathe particulate matter to strengthen their lungs, says expected new EPA science advisor
In stacking EPA advisory boards with skeptics, he's laying the groundwork to gut regulations that protect Americans from polluted air.
BY EMILY ATKIN
October 31, 2017
The Trump administrations environmental denialism runs much deeper than global warming. That became clear just one month into the presidency, at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, where panelist Steve Milloyformerly a paid flack for the tobacco and fossil fuel industries and member of the presidents Environmental Protection Agency transition teamargued that the mainstream science on the health risks of air pollution was wrong. Contra the Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health and most publishing epidemiologists, Milloy insisted that excessive particulate matter is not linked to premature deathand that scientists who advise the EPA made up evidence to support the Obama administrations regulatory priorities. These people validate and rubber-stamp the EPAs conclusion that air pollution kills people, he said. His co-panelists nodded in agreement.
Milloy called for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to overhaul the agencys scientific advisory boards, the bodies that ensure public health regulations are based on sound, peer-reviewed science. Milloy said scientists who receive EPA grants are biased toward regulation, and thus Pruitt should ban them from serving on the boards. He and his co-panelists also argued for more representation from polluting industries, which clearly do have a bias against regulation.
Milloy and others on the anti-environmental fringe are getting their wish. On Tuesday, Pruitt announced massive changes to the EPAs Scientific Advisory Board and Clean Air Scientific Advisory Council, both of which advise EPA on the science behind proposed regulations. Pruitt announced that EPA will no longer appoint scientists who have received grants from the agency to these boards. From this day forward, EPA advisory committee members will be financially independent from the agency, he said. Pruitt is also expected to replace every single member whose term is expiring instead of renewing some for a second term, as is common practice. Terry Yosie, former director of the Science Advisory Board during the Reagan administration, told me, Its fair to say that this has never happened to this sweeping degree before of existing board members whose terms are expiring this year.
....
Robert Phalen, who directs the Air Pollution Health Effects Laboratory at the University of California Irvine, is not an obvious ideologue like Honeycutt, but his research findings would support a deregulatory agenda for air pollution. The relative risks associated with modern {particulate matter} are very small and confounded by many factors, he wrote in a 2004 study. Neither toxicology studies nor human clinical investigations have identified the components and/or characteristics of [particulate matter] that might be causing the health-effect associations. Phalen has argued that the air is currently too clean, because childrens lungs need to breathe irritants in order to learn how to fight them. Modern air, he said in 2012, is a little too clean for optimum health.
....
Emily Atkin is a staff writer at the New Republic. @emorwee