EPA removes half of scientific board, seeking industry-aligned replacements

Administrator Scott Pruitt, in choosing not to renew nine members’ terms, has ‘eviscerated’ board of scientific counselors, says chair

The Environmental Protection Agency has “eviscerated” a key scientific review board by removing half its members and seeking to replace them with industry-aligned figures, according to the board’s chair.

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Scott Pruitt, the EPA administrator, has chosen not to renew the terms of nine of the 18-member board of scientific counselors, which advises the EPA on the quality and accuracy of the science it produces. The group, largely made up of academics, is set to be replaced by representatives from industries that the EPA regulates.

Deborah Swackhamer, chair of the board, said that with other planned departures, the panel was left with five members, including her, in the midst of an EPA hiring freeze.

“The committee has been eviscerated,” she told the Guardian. “We assumed these people would be renewed and there was no reason or indication they wouldn’t be. These people aren’t Obama appointees, they are scientific appointees. To have a political decision to get rid of them was a shock.”

The nine departing members – who worked on matters including toxic water pollution, climate change and chemical safety – all completed three-year terms. The decision to not renew those terms has opened the way for the Trump administration to refashion the scientific board in line with its industry-friendly agenda that has sought to strip away various pollution rules in the name of “regulatory certainty”.

A spokesman for the agency told the New York Times: “The administrator believes we should have people on this board who understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community.”

There would be a morality issue if the committee is turned into a political pawn of a certain viewpoint Deborah Swackhamer

This could lead to multiple instances of conflicts of interest, Swackhamer said, despite clear EPA ethics rules.

“If you have industry hand-picked people,” she said, “the concern would be that they would have a frequent conflict because we discuss areas that touch upon big industry.

“This administration has made statements not terribly favourable to science. There would be a morality issue if the committee is turned into a political pawn of a certain viewpoint. Our credibility would be destroyed. We would be seen within the scientific community as tainted.”

Courtney Flint, a board member and professor of natural resource sociology at Utah State University, said she was told on Friday her term would not be renewed.

“This came as a surprise as I had been told that the appointment would be renewed,” she told the Guardian, adding that the board “has been careful to avoid partisanship in our scientific recommendations”.

“I am hopeful that this advisory work can continue to be done by objective scientific experts that represent a cross-section of societal voices to inform policy.”

Pruitt, a former Oklahoma attorney general who sued the EPA multiple times over its pollution rules, has criticized the science produced by the agency to support its regulations.

In March, Pruitt reversed a move to ban chlorpyrifos, a widely used pesticide, despite the advice of EPA scientists that it could be harmful to children and farm workers. Pruitt said: “We are returning to using sound science in decision-making, rather than predetermined results.”

John O’Grady, president of a union that represents more than 9,000 EPA employees, said he was concerned that the agency would now be “repopulated with scientists who operate within the realm of opinion, rather than fact”.

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“We are already aware of the opinion of this administration and Mr Pruitt with respect to climate change,” he said. “However, opinions are neither fact nor theory and do not belong to the realm of science.

“Without independence and sound peer review of the science conducted by the agency, it will be impossible to distinguish between good science and bad science at the US EPA.”

Republicans have complained about the EPA’s scientific advisory board, claiming that it is too heavily weighted in favour of academics who support regulation.

In February, Lamar Smith, chairman of the House science committee, said: “The EPA routinely stacks this board with friendly scientists who receive millions of dollars in grants from the federal government. The conflict of interest here is clear.”

Members of the board, however, deny that they are politically motivated, pointing to the ethics training and vetting they receive, similar to that undergone by career public servants.

Swackhamer said: “We have spirited conversations about the science – we don’t just rubber-stamp what the EPA wants to do. These people are valuable, highly qualified and highly vetted. It’s troubling that political considerations have come into this.”

In a statement to the Guardian, an EPA spokesman said: “EPA received hundreds of nominations to serve on the board, and we want to ensure fair consideration of all the nominees – including those nominated who may have previously served on the panel – and carry out a competitive nomination process.”