Science Panel Staffed With Trump Appointees Says E.P.A. Rollbacks Lack Scientific Rigor

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/climate/epa-science-panel-trump.html

By Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman
Published Dec. 31, 2019
Updated Jan. 2, 2020

A top panel of government-appointed scientists, many of them hand-selected by the Trump administration, said on Tuesday that three of President Trump’s most far-reaching and scrutinized proposals to weaken major environmental regulations are at odds with established science.

Draft letters posted online Tuesday by the Environmental Protection Agency’s Scientific Advisory Board, which is responsible for evaluating the scientific integrity of the agency’s regulations, took aim at the Trump administration’s rewrite of an Obama-era regulation of waterways, an Obama-era effort to curb planet-warming vehicle tailpipe emissions and a plan to limit scientific data that can be used to draft health regulations.

In each case, the 41 scientists on a board — many of whom were appointed by Trump administration officials to replace scientists named by the Obama administration — found the regulatory changes flew in the face of science.

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Many scientists on the advisory board were selected by Trump administration officials early in the administration, as President Trump sought to move forward with an aggressive agenda of weakening environmental regulations. During the first year of the Trump administration, more than a quarter of the academic scientists on the panel departed or were dismissed, and many were replaced by scientists with industry ties who were perceived as likely to be more friendly to the industries that the E.P.A. regulates.

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