President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, Scott Pruitt, just introduced sweeping changes to the structure of the EPA’s Scientific Advisory Committee.
The EPA hinted at upcoming reforms, as Administrator Pruitt spoke at the Heritage Foundation this last Tuesday. In an effort to purge the radical, and Obama-aligned, Scientific Advisory Committee Pruitt teased a policy that would remove all scientists who have taken federal grant money. It is well known that the government affects the national course of research by offering grant money to prop up certain approved “scientific” narratives and push them into the public eye.
Pruitt explained, “Those individuals, as they’ve served in those capacities … they’ve received monies through grants, and sometimes substantial monies through grants.”
He had continued by saying, “I think what’s most important at the agency is to have advisers, scientific advisers, that are objective, independent-minded, providing transparent recommendations to me as the administrator and to our office, on decisions we’re making on the efficacy of rules that we’re passing to address environmental issues.”
He further added, “If we have individuals who are on those boards receiving money from the agency … that to me causes question on the independence and the veracity and the transparency of those recommendations that are coming our way.”
Pruitt said that his directive next week would also “fix that.” He then compared it to his Monday directive that was meant to crack down on the settlements with the environmental groups who had sued the agency over the regulatory matters.
The directive that impacts the scientists who had received grants would come amidst a shake-up of the EPA advisory boards operating under Pruitt.
Earlier this year, he had declined to renew nearly half of the membership of the 18-person Board of Scientific Counselors. He is now considering more than 130 candidates to fill in 15 spots opening up on the Science Advisory Board, and many of these candidates reject the mainstream science on issues like the climate change or have close ties to the industries the EPA regulates.
Republicans, including Pruitt, had pointed out how the Obama administration packed key EPA boards and committees with unqualified “scientists,” who were ideologically aligned to the most radical and alarmist corners of the environmental world. This means that, for the past 8 years, the EPA has been a strictly enforced echo-chamber of radicalism, that is still entrenched to this day.