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EPA Removes Scientists from Scientific Review Board
In their continued assault against the environment and efforts to combat climate change, the Scott Pruitt and the Environment Protection Agency removed 5 scientists from the Board of Science Counselors, which monitors and directs research conducted by EPA scientists. The move is a clear signal that the EPA aims to consider business interests over scientific data.
A spokesman for the E.P.A. administrator, Scott Pruitt, said he would consider replacing the academic scientists with representatives from industries whose pollution the agency is supposed to regulate, as part of the wide net it plans to cast.
Pruitt, who has publicly challenged the science on climate change, has made multiple moves to privlige the coal and energy industries over academic science.
In his first outings as E.P.A. administrator, Mr. Pruitt has made a point of visiting coal mines and pledging that his agency will seek to restore that industry, even though many members of both of the E.P.A.’s scientific advisory boards have historically recommended stringent constraints on coal pollution to combat climate change.
While not fired from the board, members of the review board serve 3 year terms that are not being renewed in the case of these 5 members, the scientists were told in January that their terms were likely to be renewed.
“I see the dismissal of the scientists from the Board of Scientific Counselors as a test balloon,” said Joseph Arvai, an environmental scientist at the University of Michigan who is on the Scientific Advisory Board. “This is clearly very political, and we should be very concerned if it goes further.”