{"id":4573,"date":"2018-08-14T16:22:45","date_gmt":"2018-08-14T16:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/environment.law.harvard.edu\/?p=4573"},"modified":"2019-04-16T17:37:08","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T17:37:08","slug":"emmett-clinic-files-amicus-briefs-cases-challenging-epa-science-advisory-board-directive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clinics.law.harvard.edu\/environment\/2018\/08\/14\/emmett-clinic-files-amicus-briefs-cases-challenging-epa-science-advisory-board-directive\/","title":{"rendered":"Emmett Clinic Files Amicus Briefs in Cases Challenging EPA Science Advisory Board Directive"},"content":{"rendered":"

August 14, 2018 – This summer, the Emmett Environmental Law & Policy Clinic has filed amicus<\/a> briefs<\/a> in two cases challenging former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt\u2019s directive to exclude scientists who hold EPA research grants from serving on the agency\u2019s science advisory committees.\u00a0 The Clinic\u2019s briefs, filed on behalf of former senior agency officials from both Republican and Democratic administrations, explain that the directive will undermine EPA\u2019s ability to make scientifically-sound decisions and serves no countervailing beneficial purpose.<\/p>\n

EPA, to fulfill its mission to protect human health and the environment, must by statute base many of its decisions on specific types of scientific information and pursuant to discrete, science-based standards.\u00a0 More generally, the regulatory decisions that EPA must make inevitably involve scientific questions such as what impacts various pollutants have on human health and the environment; how those pollutants interact with each other and how they move through the air, water, and soil; and the feasibility and cost of different pollution control technologies.\u00a0 As a result, EPA has always taken the position that its decisions should be based on the best available science\u2014an approach that has produced immense benefits for the American people.<\/p>\n

One of the ways that EPA ensures a proper scientific basis for its decisions is through the science advisory committees that it oversees.\u00a0 These committees\u2014including the Science Advisory Board, Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, and Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act Scientific Advisory Panel\u2014perform multiple functions.\u00a0 For example, they review EPA\u2019s research strategies and plans, respond to specific research requests from the agency, and review EPA\u2019s scientific conclusions in major rulemakings.<\/p>\n

In an unprecedented and legally suspect move, former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on October 31, 2017, issued a directive that barred scientists who receive EPA research grants from serving on any of the agency\u2019s advisory committees.<\/p>\n

Multiple lawsuits have been filed to challenge this directive, including one in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia by Physicians for Social Responsibility along with two other organizations and three individual scientists and another in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by the Natural Resources Defense Council.\u00a0 In these lawsuits, the plaintiffs argue\u2014among other things\u2014that the directive violates the uniform federal ethics rules, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, and the statutes that establish specific science advisory committees.<\/p>\n

The Clinic filed amicus briefs in both of these cases.\u00a0 The briefs explain that the effect of the directive will be to undermine EPA\u2019s ability to base its decisions on the best available science.\u00a0 Because the EPA grant process is very competitive, the scientists who receive these grants are likely to be leaders in their fields.\u00a0 Moreover, the agency directs its research grants towards emerging or newly-recognized environmental questions.\u00a0 As a result, the recipients of that funding become experts on highly specialized scientific issues likely to come before the agency.\u00a0 The directive, then, keeps some of the most qualified scientists off of EPA science advisory committees.<\/p>\n

In addition, the Clinic\u2019s briefs argue, the directive tries to solve a problem that does not exist.\u00a0 The directive\u2019s stated purpose is to prevent conflicts of interest on advisory committees and remove bias towards the agency. \u00a0Yet an effective and detailed conflict of interest framework already governed these and all federal advisory committees before the directive took effect.\u00a0 Office of Government Ethics guidelines do not treat grant funding as a disqualifying conflict of interest.\u00a0 As a result, EPA science advisory committees have always welcomed scientists who received grant funding from either the agency or from regulated industries.<\/p>\n

Moreover, if committee members\u2019 sources of funding did present a disqualifying conflict of interest, then the directive adopts a partial and biased solution to that problem.\u00a0 It bars only scientists who receive EPA grants.\u00a0 These scientists will generally be based at universities.\u00a0 The directive does not, however, bar scientists who receive funding from the regulated industries that will be affected by EPA regulatory decisions.\u00a0 Nothing in the directive provides any justification for treating one source of funding as disqualifying and the other as acceptable.<\/p>\n

The Clinic filed the brief on behalf of a distinguished group of former senior officials in EPA and other federal agencies:<\/p>\n