https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09112017/scott-pruitt-epa-investigation-scientists-advisory-board-gao-congress
[links in on-line article]
10 Senators Call for Investigation into EPA Pushing Scientists Off
Advisory Boards
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s ‘double-standard is striking’, the
senators write. Many of his new appointees have ties to industries EPA
regulates.
By Georgina Gustin
Nov 10, 2017
A group of Senate Democrats is calling for an expanded investigation
into efforts by the Trump Environmental Protection Agency to effectively
push independent scientists off key EPA advisory boards and replace them
with scientists from the fossil fuel and chemical industries.
In a letter sent to the Government Accountability Office on Thursday,
the 10 senators asked the GAO to investigate a new directive, issued by
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on Oct. 31, that restricts any scientist
who has received EPA funding from serving on the agency's scientific
advisory panels.
Pruitt said the move was intended to clear up conflicts of interest and
to rid advisory panel members of financial ties to the agency. But
scientific groups, academics and advocacy organizations have all pointed
out that it will mean the most experienced scientists—whose
qualifications earn them government grants in the first place—will no
longer be able to serve in these roles.
"The double-standard is striking: an academic scientist that receives an
EPA grant for any purpose cannot provide independent advice on a
completely different subject matter on any of EPA's science advisory
boards," the senators wrote, "while industry scientists are presumed to
have no inherent conflict even if their research is entirely funded by a
company with a financial stake in an advisory board's conclusions."
Five days after Pruitt issued the directive, The Washington Post
reported that he appointed 66 new members to advisory panels, many of
them with ties to industries the agency regulates. Several panel members
stepped down.
"Under this new policy, EPA will be replacing representatives of public
and private universities including Harvard, Stanford, Ohio State
University, and the University of Southern California with scientists
who work for Phillips 66, Total, Southern Company, and the American
Chemistry Council," the senators wrote.
In response to a request for comment, an EPA spokesperson replied: "The
Administrator has issued a directive which clearly states his policy
with regard to grantees." The agency did not respond to questions about
whether new members will be required to sign conflict of interest
declarations or undergo a review process.
Earlier this year, the EPA said it would not renew the terms of members
of its broader Board of Scientific Counselors, and beyond EPA, the
administration has allowed other scientific boards to expire altogether.
In August, the acting head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) told members of an advisory panel for the National
Climate Assessment that it would allow the panel's charter to lapse.
The recent Pruitt directive is similar to legislation long pushed by
Republicans in Congress, including a bill introduced earlier this year
called the EPA Science Advisory Board Reform Act.
Science organizations have pointed out that anyone receiving a federal
grant undergoes a merit review, which scrutinizes their professional
standards and ethics, and that grant applicants have to declare they
have no conflicts of interest before receiving government grants.
"EPA's decisions have real implications for the health and well-being of
Americans and in some cases people worldwide," wrote Chris McEntee, the
executive director of the American Geophysical Union. "By curtailing the
input of some of the most respected minds in science, Pruitt's decision
robs the agency, and by extension Americans, of a critically important
resource."
The senators' letter on Thursday follows a previous request to the GAO,
the investigative arm of Congress, to investigate the EPA's policies and
procedures related to advisory panels.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/epa-science-advisers-replaced_us_59fa2b75e4b0b0c7fa37bd17
[links in on-line article]
EPA Replaced Its Top Science Advisers Without Telling Them
The scientists accused EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt of giving
industry-friendly researchers control and then defending his decision in
doublespeak.
11/01/2017 17:50 EDT | Updated 11/01/2017 17:58 EDT
Alexander C. Kaufman
Business & Environment Reporter, HuffPost
The Environmental Protection Agency dismissed its top science counselors
without telling them in advance, two of them told HuffPost on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced a new rule barring
scientists who receive EPA research funding from serving on the agency’s
three main advisory panels: the Science Advisory Board, the Clean Air
Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) and the Board of Scientific
Counselors. The move cleared the way for Pruitt to name industry-backed
researchers to take control of the boards, which are meant to serve as a
check on policies at the agency.
The head of the Science Advisory Board, Peter Thorne, and the head of
the Board of Scientific Counselors, Deborah Swackhamer, said they
learned from news reporters that they had been replaced.
“This is really a destruction of the scientific integrity at EPA,” said
Thorne, a University of Iowa professor of occupational and environmental
health who has served as the head of the Science Advisory Board since
2015. “It’s disheartening to see.”
Thorne is is still listed as the Science Advisory Board chair on the
EPA’s website, and said he had not heard anything about changes to the
board until a reporter called after Pruitt’s press conference on Tuesday
afternoon. Thorne said he had hoped to serve another two years as chair,
even as other members of the advisory board have been fired or have quit
to protest Pruitt’s antagonistic approach to scientists, but now his
term is over.
Ana Diez Roux, the head of CASAC, was also dismissed as chair. She did
not return an email and call from HuffPost.
“Administrator Pruitt issued a directive yesterday to ensure
independence, geographic diversity and integrity in EPA science
committees,” an EPA spokesman said in a statement to HuffPost.
“Membership on these three boards consists of qualified scientists who
will help strengthen public confidence in EPA science.”
Pruitt announced on Tuesday that he was replacing Thorne with Michael
Honeycutt, the head of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s
toxicology division, to serve as the head of the Science Advisory Board.
Honeycutt, accused in 2010 by the Texas Observer of “abusing science”
and serving as a “crony” to then-Gov. Rick Perry (R), leaned heavily on
research funded by the chemical, fossil fuel and tobacco industries. He
once suggested the health risks linked to smog were overstated, said
that ozone standards made “no biological sense” because “most people are
indoors for 90 percent of the time,” and blasted the EPA for relying on
epidemiological studies that he considered “not scientifically rigorous.”
Pruitt said the new rules would ensure “there’s integrity in the process
and that the scientists that are advising us are doing so without any
kind of appearance of conflict.”
Thorne dismissed those remarks as doublespeak, saying he did not get
funding from the EPA for any research, but that the boards had rigorous
procedures in place to recuse scientists from advising on subjects they
had received grants to study.
“That’s the intent of it, to erode the tried-and-true practice of using
rigorous peer-reviewed science to formulate policy and instead bring
into the fold those who seek to profit from rewriting the rules on
environmental protection,” Thorne said.
Swackhamer, who has been head of the Board of Scientific Counselors
since 2015, was awaiting a flight home to the U.S. at an airport in
Zagreb, Croatia, when she received an email from a friend with a link to
a news report on the EPA’s press conference. The professor emerita of
environmental health sciences at the University of Minnesota said she is
retired, and does not receive any grant money from the EPA.
“I verified it with EPA today,” she wrote in an email to HuffPost. “I
have not been told why I was removed as chair.”
Pruitt named Paul Gilman as Swackhamer’s replacement as chair of the
Board of Scientific Counselors. Gilman, who served as an assistant
administrator to the EPA from 2002 to 2004, currently works as the chief
sustainability officer at the waste management and incinerator company
Covanta. His advocacy for using burning trash as a source of fuel raises
questions about his role at the EPA, particularly after the incinerator
industry attempted to sabotage the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ effort to
push for 100 percent renewable energy in June.
Unlike Thorne, Swackhamer has time left in her term on the board, and
she told E&E News she intended to continue on as an adviser ― something
the EPA said it “fully expects.” Swackhamer said at least one person on
her board may be affected by the new rule, but declined to give that
person’s name until she confirmed the researcher had been notified.
Swackhamer went public five months ago with accusations that Pruitt’s
chief of staff pressured her to alter her congressional testimony to
play down the EPA’s dismissal of scientific advisers.
“I was stunned that he was pushing me to ‘correct’ something in my
testimony,” Swackhamer told The New York Times in June. “I was factual,
and he was not. I felt bullied.”
The unceremonious and hotly-politicized dismissals of top officials has
become a hallmark of the Trump administration. When President Donald
Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May, Comey found out from TV
news reports while speaking to employees in Los Angeles. The Department
of Justice fired Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern
District of New York, after Trump suddenly demanded his resignation
months after asking him to stay on. Earlier this year, the EPA axed 38
science advisers in what many described at the time as a purge.
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http://www.businessinsider.com/epa-science-office-removed-science-mission-statement-2017-3
[images and links in on-line article]
The EPA's science office just removed the word 'science' from its
mission statement
Karla Lant
Mar. 13, 2017, 2:21 PM
As President Donald Trump took office in late January, his
administration began changing the language on government websites.
Changes to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pages were among the
more notable modifications, including the deletion of "science" from the
mission statement of the EPA's Office of Science and Technology Policy
(OST).
These changes and others have been documented by the Environmental Data
and Governance Initiative (EDGI). On March 7, EDGI shared this deletion
with the New Republic and Gretchen Gehrke, a member of the EDGI website
tracking team, provided some commentary on the change.
"This is probably the most important thing we've found so far," Gehrke
told the New Republic. "The language changes here are not nuanced — they
have really important regulatory implications."
The OST of the EPA has historically been tasked with developing clean
water standards for states. Until January 30, 2017, the OST's portion of
the website described the standards as "science-based," in that they
were founded on scientific, peer-reviewed recommendations for safe
levels of water pollutants for drinking, fishing, or swimming. As of
January 30, OST says it develops "economically and technologically
achievable standards," not "science-based" standards.
As President Donald Trump took office in late January, his
administration began changing the language on government websites.
Changes to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pages were among the
more notable modifications, including the deletion of "science" from the
mission statement of the EPA's Office of Science and Technology Policy
(OST).
These changes and others have been documented by the Environmental Data
and Governance Initiative (EDGI). On March 7, EDGI shared this deletion
with the New Republic and Gretchen Gehrke, a member of the EDGI website
tracking team, provided some commentary on the change.
"This is probably the most important thing we've found so far," Gehrke
told the New Republic. "The language changes here are not nuanced — they
have really important regulatory implications."
The OST of the EPA has historically been tasked with developing clean
water standards for states. Until January 30, 2017, the OST's portion of
the website described the standards as "science-based," in that they
were founded on scientific, peer-reviewed recommendations for safe
levels of water pollutants for drinking, fishing, or swimming. As of
January 30, OST says it develops "economically and technologically
achievable standards," not "science-based" standards.