EPA headquarters in Washington. Federal Privacy Council
Published: Tuesday, February 12, 2019, Updated at 5:21 p.m. EST.
Then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt acted within his authority when he rewrote the rules for membership on the agency’s advisory committees, a court ruled today.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a lawsuit from Physicians for Social Responsibility, a researcher and others opposed to the 2017 policy barring current recipients of EPA grants from serving on 22 powerful panels that guide the agency on a wide variety of environmental and public health issues.
Judge Trevor McFadden ruled that the policy change — opposed by those who say it unfairly limited the experts who can serve on the boards — was within the administrator’s discretion.
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“No doubt EPA aspires to recruit the ‘most qualified’ scientists and subject matter experts,” he wrote, “but evaluating the relative qualifications of potential committee members is exactly the kind of discretionary decision making that is precluded from judicial review.”
The boards affected include the Science Advisory Board and the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee.
Pruitt said he moved to limit participation to those without ties to agency grant money to prevent the appearance of interference. Critics argued the change was an effort to stack the boards with members favoring the Trump administration’s deregulatory agenda (Greenwire, March 12, 2018).
“EPA and the public are losing some of the best scientific advice by excluding top scientists who receive EPA grants,” Earthjustice attorney Patti Goldman, representing the plaintiffs, said in an emailed statement after today’s ruling. The plaintiffs are considering an appeal.
Agency officials were pleased by the outcome.
“EPA is still reviewing today’s opinion, but we are pleased that the court granted our motion to dismiss all of the claims in this case,” a spokesman said in an email this evening.
