Trump’s EPA Appointee Dismisses Half of Major Scientific Review Board at Agency

Matthew J. Grassi Posted by Matthew J. Grassi|May 8, 2017

(Via NYTimes.com)

EPA has dismissed at least five members of a major scientific review board, the latest signal of what critics call a campaign by the Trump administration to shrink the agency’s regulatory reach by reducing the role of academic research, reports Coral Davenport with The New York Times.

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A spokesman for EPA 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. “The administrator believes we should have people on this board who understand the impact of regulations on the regulated community,” said the spokesman, J. P. Freire.

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The dismissals on Friday came about six weeks after the House passed a bill aimed at changing the composition of another EPA scientific review board to include more representation from the corporate world.

Head on over to NYTimes.com for the full story from Davenport.

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Grassi is Field Editor for CropLife, CropLife IRON, and PrecisionAg magazines. He joined the staff in February 2012. See all author stories here.

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Avatar for Tom Tom says:
May 8, 2017 at 3:12 pm

given the source, this article is sure to be, if not ‘fake news,’ certainly a cramped and partisan view of what’s happened. FIFRA law in particular seeks to balance risks and benefits. In the last 8 years, benefits of pesticides or the costs associated with label cancellation have been ignored in favor of a presumption of unacceptable risk. witness the recent EPA habit of cancelling crop tolerances for chemistries targeted by environmental activists when the science didn’t show unacceptable risk Vs benefits derived. The law requires a balanced assessment of risk V benefit. Cancelling tolerances is easier as the regulators can do that in spite of the science and without considering the costs. Mr. Pruitt is likely seeking a little balance in the necessary debates over proper policy. the NYT is not a source of unbiased news.

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Avatar for Matthew J. Grassi Matthew J. Grassi says:
May 8, 2017 at 3:15 pm

Well Tom, if I wanted to play devil’s advocate I could argue that someone that works at FMC – a crop protection company – is “not a source of unbiased news” either.

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