Swordsmyth
02-13-2019, 06:58 PM
On Tuesday, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia upheld (https://junkscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Science-advisor-win-ruling.pdf) a Trump-era EPA rule that disqualifies scientists in receipt of grants from the EPA from holding any advisory position in the agency.
During the Obama administration, many scientists given those highly coveted advisory positions were also being paid rather handsomely with EPA grant money. Former EPA head Scott Pruitt announced the new rule in 2017.
The rule requires that “no member of an EPA federal advisory committee be currently in receipt of EPA grants.”
The rule was made in an effort to roll back the Obama administration’s practice of stacking EPA advisory committees with scientists sympathetic to Obama’s “war on coal.” The fight against committee stacking predates the Trump administration. It was first brought into the open more than eight years ago by Steve Milloy, the Energy and Environment (E&E) Legal (https://eelegal.org/) Institute’s senior policy fellow and a member of Trump’s EPA transition team. In May of 2016, Milloy and E&E Legal sued (https://eelegal.org/press-release-2/) the Obama administration over the issue, saying, “The EPA has stacked the panel, which is required by law to be independent and unbiased, with researchers who have received over $190 million in discretionary grants from the EPA. This clearly violates the law and makes a mockery of the notion of ‘independent scientific review,’”
Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, ruled that the EPA had wide discretion in naming advisory board members. In his decision, McFadden wrote that the rules in question, “do not dictate whom administrators must, or even should, appoint to federal advisory committees.”
McFadden noted that ethics laws do allow grant recipients to sit on advisory boards, but that is different from mandating that they become members.
More at: https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/31485-court-gives-trump-epa-victory-over-soros-funded-group
During the Obama administration, many scientists given those highly coveted advisory positions were also being paid rather handsomely with EPA grant money. Former EPA head Scott Pruitt announced the new rule in 2017.
The rule requires that “no member of an EPA federal advisory committee be currently in receipt of EPA grants.”
The rule was made in an effort to roll back the Obama administration’s practice of stacking EPA advisory committees with scientists sympathetic to Obama’s “war on coal.” The fight against committee stacking predates the Trump administration. It was first brought into the open more than eight years ago by Steve Milloy, the Energy and Environment (E&E) Legal (https://eelegal.org/) Institute’s senior policy fellow and a member of Trump’s EPA transition team. In May of 2016, Milloy and E&E Legal sued (https://eelegal.org/press-release-2/) the Obama administration over the issue, saying, “The EPA has stacked the panel, which is required by law to be independent and unbiased, with researchers who have received over $190 million in discretionary grants from the EPA. This clearly violates the law and makes a mockery of the notion of ‘independent scientific review,’”
Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, ruled that the EPA had wide discretion in naming advisory board members. In his decision, McFadden wrote that the rules in question, “do not dictate whom administrators must, or even should, appoint to federal advisory committees.”
McFadden noted that ethics laws do allow grant recipients to sit on advisory boards, but that is different from mandating that they become members.
More at: https://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/31485-court-gives-trump-epa-victory-over-soros-funded-group