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Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has chosen to replace half of the members on one of its key scientific review boards, the first step in a broader effort by Republicans to change the way the agency evaluates the scientific basis for its regulations.
The move could significantly change the makeup of the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors, which advises EPA's key scientific arm on whether the research it does has sufficient rigor and integrity. All of the members being dismissed were at the end of serving at least one three-year term, although these terms are often renewed instead of terminated.
EPA spokesman J.P. Freire said in an email that "no one has been fired or terminated," and that Pruitt had simply decided to bring in fresh advisers. The agency informed the outside academics on Friday that their terms would not be renewed.
[...] These moves came as a surprise to the agencies' outside advisers, with several of them taking to Twitter to announce their suspensions.
Members of EPA's Board of Scientific Counselors had been informed twice — in January, before Barack Obama left office, and then more recently by EPA career staff members — that they would be kept on for another term, adding to their confusion.
We cannot allow Beijing's air quality to beat ours.
(Score: 5, Informative) by kaszz on Tuesday May 09 2017, @04:53AM (1 child)
We must have more places like Parkersburg, West Virginia [huffingtonpost.com] where the drinking water, soil and air is all C8 and PFOS poisoned all brought to you by Doh Point of Poison. They even gifted the rest of the world with their perfluorooctanoic acid. Bio accumulated, which means it enters your body and stays for life. Present in household products, including carpeting, Teflon pans, waterproof clothes, pizza boxes, dental floss, kitty litter and cosmetics.
It was all kept out of the public by stonewalling, attacking scientists, misdirection, massaging test results, testing the wrong things with the wrong methods, misleading regulators etc. The consequences are prostate cancer, leukemia, liver swelling, ulcerative colitis and birth defects.
Want to keep an eye on things like this? pay attention to nearby industries what they use and make, former industry sites, disease cases and do some chemical testing. Expect most people to be on the books or not getting it.
Love canal [wikipedia.org] in Niagara Falls, New York is another case with similar chain of events.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @08:54PM
Can we get a "+50, required reading" mod?