The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not be renewing the terms of at least five scientists on its 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors, according to a Sunday night report from the New York Times. The Times wrote that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt would consider replacing those scientists with “representatives from industries whose pollution the agency is supposed to regulate,” according to J.P. Freire, a spokesperson for Pruitt.
Although all the scientists being dismissed are at the ends of their three-year terms, appointees to the board are generally not seen as political actors and usually have their terms renewed. In addition, the appointees were apparently told in January, and again by EPA staffers more recently, that they’d have their terms renewed.
The dismissed scientists include Courtney Flint, a professor of natural resource sociology from Utah State University, and Robert Richardson, an environmental economist from Michigan State University. The Board of Scientific Counselors advises the Office of Research and Development on ways to improve the quality of its research and evaluates the work that comes out of that office. “Members of the board say they have reviewed the EPA’s scientific research on the public health impact of leaking underground fuel tanks, the toxicity of the chemicals used to clean up oil spills, and the effects of the spread of bark beetles caused by a warming climate,” the Times writes.
The EPA is tasked with regulating harmful pollutants, but the new administrator has a well-established adversarial relationship with that mission. Pruitt sued the EPA several times as Oklahoma Attorney General (although he recused himself from 12 active lawsuits against the EPA that he was party to late last week). In his short stint as head of the EPA, he has baselessly rejected that carbon dioxide is a major contributor to climate change and made comments on Fox News that support expanding the use of coal burning in electricity generation.
Ars contacted the EPA for comment on how it will choose replacements for the dismissed scientists, but the agency did not respond. Speaking to the Washington Post, Pruitt spokesman Freire said the dismissed scientists could reapply for their positions. “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.”
Freire added, “We’re making a clean break with the last administration’s approach.”
Conservative federal legislators have complained that the EPA’s Scientific Advisory Board (a 47-member panel that works with the Board of Scientific Counselors) lacks “balance,” although the board is independent and composed of relevant experts who can assess underlying science that informs EPA policy. Earlier this year, the House Science Committee led by Lamar Smith (R-TX) pushed for reforms to the Scientific Advisory Board to put more industry representatives in those seats and prevent scientists holding EPA grants from sitting on the board.
Interior too
According to the Washington Post, an overhaul of scientific boards is not unique to the EPA this week. “Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is ‘reviewing the charter and charge’ of more than 200 advisory boards, committees, and other entities both within and outside of his department,” the Post wrote.
Interior spokesperson Heather Swift told the Post that the move was a reorganization to favor local communities: “The Secretary is committed to restoring trust in the Department’s decision-making and that begins with institutionalizing state and local input and ongoing collaboration, particularly in communities surrounding public lands. As the Department concludes its review in the weeks ahead, agencies will notice future meetings to ensure that the Department continues to get the benefit of the views of local communities in all decision-making on public land management.”
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