A chemical company lobbyist, an advocacy group that soft-pedals the dangers of climate change and an organization seeking to end animal testing in research are among those pushing candidates for EPA’s premier scientific advisory panel, according to records obtained by POLITICO’s E&E News.
The records show who nominated each of the 165 contenders for seats on the Science Advisory Board, created by Congress to furnish independent expert advice on topics that have included hydraulic fracturing and standards for “forever chemicals” in drinking water.
With Administrator Lee Zeldin yet to announce his picks, former members of the panel are worried that expertise will take a back seat to special interest agendas.
The board “is not a stakeholder advisory group,” Thomas Burke, a former member who also served as the agency’s deputy research chief during the Obama administration, said in an interview. “It’s about the excellence of the science and the independence of the science and the depth of the science.”
The Environmental Protection Network, a group of former EPA employees opposed to Trump administration policies, voiced similar concerns this summer. “The SAB is a scientific expert committee, not a representative stakeholder committee,” they said, adding, ”Members should be recognized experts in relevant fields.”
The board’s work remains at a standstill more than nine months after appointees of President Donald Trump orchestrated the blanket ouster of all previous incumbents in January. When Zeldin in May opened the door to nominations to reconstitute the panel, he called the outcome “critical” to advancing the agency’s mission of protecting human health and the environment.
To date, he has named no new members. At least in recent years, there is no precedent for leaving all board seats vacant for so long.
Asked this month when Zeldin intends to fill them, EPA spokesperson Brigit Hirsch said the review of the candidates is continuing and that more information will be released once the assessment is complete.
To Burke, now on the public health faculty at Johns Hopkins University, and other observers, the lag is indicative of a broader disregard for science at EPA. Besides gutting the Office of Research and Development as part of a reorganization, agency leaders have outright scrapped several other advisory committees.
“There’s been a lot of problematic removal of bodies that were providing outside advice to the government in decisionmaking,” said Kristie Ellickson, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Because the board also has wide-ranging authority to review the scientific basis for EPA regulatory decisions, Zeldin’s eventual choices could be key to determining the level of scrutiny on his contested plans for revisiting — and potentially rolling back — an array of rules issued under prior administrations.
In one corner are university-based researchers who have traditionally formed the backbone of the board’s membership. Dozens are in the mix of nominees, according to the records, which EPA released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Also up for appointments, however, are representatives of businesses and other organizations with a potential stake in the board’s work.
Among the latter group of candidates are four Chemours employees nominated by Mary Cordes, a registered federal lobbyist for the Delaware-based corporation entangled in litigation over the forever chemicals technically known as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.
Cordes did not reply to email and phone messages. A Chemours spokesperson declined to comment on the company’s rationale for seeking participation on the board, which several years ago carried out a closely watched assessment of EPA drinking water standards for the chemicals.
Another 15 candidates were nominated by the CO2 Coalition, which downplays the impact of heat-trapping carbon dioxide.
Although climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are having increasingly harmful effects, “there should be a debate,” Gregory Wrightstone, the coalition’s executive director, said in an interview.
“We want to make sure we have representation with highly qualified advisers,” he said.
And an adviser to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals recommended two researchers with Dow Chemical and Corteva Agriscience, as well as an independent consultant who previously worked for both EPA and Syngenta Crop Protection, according to biographical summaries posted by EPA.
Asked for comment, Amy Clippinger, the managing director of PETA’s regulatory toxicology program, said in an email exchange that the group works with other scientists to advance reliable and relevant toxicity testing without the use of animals.
The three nominees “are subject matter experts in chemical toxicity testing, broadly — including expertise across animal and non-animal tests,” Clippinger said.
EPA is also seeking to reseed five panels affiliated with the SAB that work on drinking water, chemical assessments and other more specialized topics. In play on a parallel track are seats on the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, which aids in reviews of national air pollutant standards and has similarly been mothballed since January.
Reshaping advisory boards
Congress created the Science Advisory Board in 1978, accompanied by a provision that members “shall be qualified by education, training, and experience to evaluate scientific and technical information on matters referred to the Board under this section.”
In recent years, however, congressional Republicans and other critics have faulted the SAB’s bent toward academia as isolated from real-world consequences. During Trump’s first term, EPA barred agency grant recipients from joining its multitude of advisory panels, a step that critics said effectively sidelined many reputable experts from serving.
That policy was eventually struck down in court, but — along with other changes — it opened the door to more members from regulated industries as well as state, local and tribal agencies.
Even so, the SAB emerged as a tough critic of the scientific underpinnings of high-profile rollbacks during that period. In what some members saw as retaliation, then-EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler stripped rank-and-file board members of any role in deciding which proposed rules warranted attention.
Wheeler’s approach was discarded under President Joe Biden. But by leaving the board dormant, Zeldin has so far effectively leashed one potential watchdog. The push for more board members from Republican-leaning states meanwhile continues.
The current crop of SAB candidates includes five staffers from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, which is headed by Clint Woods, who served as EPA’s deputy air chief during Trump’s first term.
In an interview, Woods confirmed that their nominations were coordinated. “People from our agency, people from other state environmental agencies bring really important perspectives,” he said following his September testimony before a House panel on Clean Air Act permitting changes.
But in its comments on the nominees, the Environmental Protection Network noted that one of the Indiana candidates is a field inspector whose official biography does not indicate any publications or research grants.
The network also highlighted “the substantial number of candidates who are employed by, or serve as consultants to, companies and industries that are directly regulated by EPA.”
“While these individuals may possess valuable expertise,” the group wrote, “they may also lack impartiality and an inclination for protecting the interests of their employers.”
The group voluntarily posted the feedback on its website. Through a separate FOIA request, E&E News has sought comments to EPA from other organizations on the board nominees. In its most recent update, the agency indicated that those records would be released in late January at the earliest.
Reach this reporter on Signal at SeanReilly.70.
