The Environmental Protection Agency dismissed a number of scientists on a key review board Friday, and a spokesperson for the agency discussed the possibility that it would replace them with representatives of the industries the agency regulates.
On Sunday, the New York Times reported that at least five members of the EPA’s 18-seat Board of Scientific Counselors, responsible for reviewing the agency science that ultimately drives regulatory decision-making, had been dismissed at the end of their three-year terms. The Washington Post reported Monday that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt had dismissed half of the board’s members.
Scientists on the board said they were told during the Obama administration that their terms would be renewed, as they normally were for at least a second term.
An EPA spokesperson did not respond to TPM’s questions about whether, or how dramatically, Pruitt intended to change the balance of the board to favor industry scientists.
Agency spokesperson J.P. Freire told the Post that the dismissals marked a “clean break” with the Obama administration, and that “We’re not going to rubber-stamp the last administration’s appointees. Instead, they should participate in the same open competitive process as the rest of the applicant pool.”
Friere told the Times that Pruitt wanted to include more universities in the adviser applicant pool, as well as “issues that aren’t typically represented.”
“The administrator believes we should have people on this board who understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community,” he added.
The move followed a wave of EPA actions that have alarmed climate scientists and others.
In March, the Post reported on a proposal to gut the budget for the 47-member Science Advisory Board, which similarly reviews agency science.
On Thursday, the EPA’s climate change page was taken down, pending review, as part of a larger update of the agency’s website. Several other executive branch agencies have taken down or sanitized information about climate change on their websites.
Yeah, why have independent scientists on the Board of Scientific Counselors. That just slows things down by bringing up things like, you know, science.
And Hillary would have totally done this and replaced them all with Goldman Sachs, Wall Street executives who contributed to the Clinton Foundation.
Wanna bet Bachmann is on a short-list here somewhere?? (And that it was Pence who put her name in.)
Not sure where to find the link, but very pertinent is a story from Australia about testimony of an oil executive, who admitted that his company’s internal projections were for 4C temperature rise by 2100. He said he was providing good shareholder value.
Right after she rounded up all the right wing conservatives and put them in FEMA reeducation camps
Her 100 days would have been awesome