EPA Dismisses Half the Scientists on Its Major Review Board (nymag.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: A few weeks after the election, pro-Trump commentator Scottie Nell Hughes heralded the dawn of a new era when she declared, "There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts." In the age of Trump there's little need for people who've devoted their lives to studying scientific facts, and over the weekend the administration finally got around to dismissing some of them. According to the Washington Post, about half of the 18 members on the Environmental Protection Agency's Board of Scientific Counselors have been informed that their terms will not be renewed. The academics who sit on the board advise the EPA's scientific board on whether its research is sound. The academics usually serve two three-year stints, and they were told by Obama administration officials and career EPA staffers that they would stay on for another term. But on Friday some received emails from the agency informing them that their first three-year term was up and they would not be renominated. Republican members of Congress have complained for some time that the Board of Scientific Counselors, as well as the 47-member Science Advisory Board, just rubber-stamp new EPA regulations. A spokesman for EPA administrator Scott Pruitt confirmed that he's thinking of replacing the academics with industry experts (though the EPA is supposed to be regulating those companies). Gretchen Goldman, research director at the Center for Science and Democracy, expressed her disappointment and asked, "What's the scientific reason for removing these individuals from this EPA science review board? It is rare to see such a large scale dismissal even in a presidential transition. The EPA is treating this scientific advisory board like its members are political appointees when these committees are not political positions. The individuals on these boards are appointed based on scientific expertise not politics. This move by the EPA is inserting politics into science."

Comments

Money

[DontBeAMoran]

Who's watching the watchers if they're watching themselves?

Re:Money

[MightyMartian]

Because some alt-right AC troll is such an example of financial success.

Just because you're a basement dwelling piece of shit doesn't mean the rest of the world is. I hope your parents throw you out on your ass so you have to actually get a real job.

Re: Money

[coastwalker]

And so the end of the supremacy of the United States of America begins. Long live the USA!

Fortunately for the history of the world the Chinese do not have a problem keeping scientific progress separate from politics and they will soon be bearing the standard forward.

Brain surgery

[PopeRatzo]

Those damn scientists think they're so smart, with their highfalutin PhDs and science stuff. We need more straight-shooting regular people doing science.

A spokesman for EPA administrator Scott Pruitt confirmed that he's thinking of replacing the academics with industry experts

OK, this shit ain't funny no more.

Re:Brain surgery

[__aaclcg7560]

These people need to go find an honest way to earn their bread.

They become industry consultants and get their old jobs back. And then some people wonder why nothing changes in Washington.

Re:Brain surgery

[Anonymous Coward]

"These people that are controlling things right now are in their own little world with no regard or though for the consequences of their actions on real peoples lives"

Do you honestly believe that the world would be a better place if anyone could do anything they want to the shared environment? Think about what that world would look like. If your neighbor could burn whatever they want, dump whatever they want. What if your neighbor was a chemical plant.

Look at the history of companies like DuPont, Dow Chemical, etc... Look at what happens when there is no EPA. Think about living next to one of these without somebody keeping them in check.

Without a check on behavior, people will live like they "are in their own little world with no regard or though for the consequences of their actions on real peoples lives". And they will destroy that world given 1/2 a chance. I'd like them not to destroy the world I share with them.

Re: Brain surgery

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen. Next we can get rid of all basketball rules and let the market decide who wins. Then I want less Copernicans on advisory boards to more accurately reflect the controversy regarding whether or not the Earth goes around the sun.

Re:Brain surgery

[sycodon]

Interestingly enough, when a medical committee is looking at brain surgeons, they typically have a few on the committee.

Government is about balancing interests of multiple groups against each other and deciding the best public policy.For instance, eliminating ALL cars from the road would save tens of thousands of lives and reduce the CO2 emissions of the US by orders of magnitude. But we don't do that because a destroyed economy isn't worth it (at least to rational people).

The EPA must always balance the cost of regulations with the expected benefit. If you have a committee of people who do not know the industry, don't know the real costs of a policy, then you end up with bad policy. The very LEAST that should have been done is to augment the committee with industry experts.

As it is they are keeping half the scientists and will be bringing in Industry people.

Re:Brain surgery

[thaylin]

You have fellow PHDs on the board, you dont invite the patients to review potential brain surgens, but that is what you are talking about.

The EPAs job is not to balance the cost of regulations with the benefits, that is congress' job, the EPA has one job, and it is in its name.

Re:Brain surgery

[AthanasiusKircher]

Interestingly enough, when a medical committee is looking at brain surgeons, they typically have a few on the committee.

Two things:

(1) As another reply already pointed out, a medical committee on brain surgery invites brain surgeons, Ph.D.s in neurophysiology or whatever, etc. They don't invite patients for their opinions on how best to do the surgery, which is a closer analogue here.

(2) Your idea may have some merit in the sense that having input from industry experts could be useful in formulating the best policy plans if they will require restructuring businesses. Perhaps there is already some sort of committee like that at the EPA, or maybe input is ad-hoc -- or maybe even one could be formed. HOWEVER, it does NOT make sense to appoint industry experts on business policy to the Board of Scientific Counselors or the Science Advisory Board.

Maybe the brain surgeons don't understand the realities of patient care and comfort. Maybe they should have a hospital committee that includes some patients to think about those issues. But the brain surgeons should NOT appoint a bunch of patients to an advisory board on the science and practice of brain surgery itself!

Re:Brain surgery

[Calydor]

So do you want the brain surgeons to determine policy for which fuckups during brain surgery your next of kin can sue them for?

Re:Brain surgery

[DogDude]

While I like my environment clean, I really don't like the excesses EPA went into with passenger cars.

Well, now, you can pay for your own lung cancer from car exhaust with your own money! Enjoy your freedom!

We are well into diminishing returns territory on both emissions and mileage - modern cars are good enough

Good enough for what, exactly? Good enough to cause massive pollution? Good enough to collectively warm up our environment? Good enough to cause illness?

Look it's fine if people want to kill themselves. Have a grand ol' time. But when your desire to kill yourself interferes with my desire to live a relatively long, healthy life, then we've got a problem. So, please, go suck on an exhaust pipe. Those of us interested in clean air would appreciate it.

Re:Brain surgery

[rahvin112]

Industry was already on the committee, by law they have to be, just like by law other groups are supposed to be represented as well. He's firing everyone that's NOT industry so industry is the only one on the committee and the only one with a voice. This is why everyone called Pruitt a Shill for industry, make no mistake he's getting paid for this, either now or later.

Because clean air and water should be something only the rich can afford.

Re:Brain surgery

[DuckDodgers]

I don't give a rat's ass what people think about climate change. I have many members of my extended family with asthma, and more than one with life-threatening asthma. And here's the thing: when they vacation to places with very low levels of air pollution, their symptoms diminish.

Earth gets hot, Florida ends up under water? I don't care. My kids and my siblings stay alive? I do care. So I'm against fossil fuel power sources and all for renewable energy, nuclear, and research into fusion power.

For those of you who wouldn't lose half your family if we had Chinese air quality: lucky you.

Re:Brain surgery

[AthanasiusKircher]

I don't think one should fear the participation of non-PhDs in EPA decision making.

Please re-read the post you replied to. I explicitly said that perhaps there should be a role in discussing and generating environmental policy that could incorporate industry experts. But TFA is talking about SCIENCE advisory boards, i.e., groups of people who are experts in SCIENCE. If they want to have an "industry advisory board" at the EPA too, I'm not necessarily opposed to that, or some sort of joint group. But it seems really odd to claim that we should put people who aren't science experts on a SCIENCE board.

Re:Brain surgery

[MrL0G1C]

"The EPA must always balance the cost of regulations with the expected benefit."

"augment the committee with industry experts."

Except what will really happen is these 'experts' will just rig the environmental policies so that the industry can pollute more and make more profits at the expense of health and the environment. Industry does not care about external costs.

Re:Brain surgery

[silentcoder]

"In our research we have found no evidence that lead levels in the atmosphere is higher than the natural level nor that atmospheric lead is harmful to human health"
"You wouldn't, since you're in the business of selling lead".

That actual conversation happened in front of congress in congressional hearings about whether lead in gasoline should be banned. The second speaker was Claire Cameron Paterson. Paterson had, several years earlier - set out to determine the age of the earth by doing uranium dating on an asteroid dating from the earliest days of the solar system. Uranium dating works by figuring out what percentage of uranium had turned to lead.
But he ran into a problem - the lead levels were impossibly high, as in the earth was apparently created last Tuesday high. He realized that lead pollution was interfering with the results. To actually get the answer he had to produce a lead-free environment to do the testing in - and to do that he had, had to become the world's top expert on detecting trace amounts of lead.
He did just that- and along the way realized that lead levels in the atmosphere was astronomically high (a big problem for something known to be a deadly poison that made people crazy and violent). The lead industry argued that lead in the atmosphere wasn't harmful and was, in fact, normal. Paterson proved (using ice core samples) that, prior to leaded gasoline being introduced, the lead level in the atmosphere was ZERO. He also collaborated with numerous doctors and proved there is no safe dosage of lead - a single lead atom is harmful to humans.

That hearing happened in 1955 with Paterson presenting his evidence to congress and begging them to ban leaded gasoline for the sake of the health of all Americans. The industry experts, despite their clear incentive for manipulating and lying about their data, won.
In fact they won for another 30 years. Leaded gasoline wasn't banned in the USA until 1985. Many other countries didn't follow suit until a decade later.

Thirty years during which millions of people needlessly died - to make a few companies a little richer.
The person who is going to be regulated by something CANNOT have a say in the regulations because is NEVER in his best interest NOT to flat out lie. If you ask him "if X harmful" he will lie if he makes money out of X.
If you ask him "how much will banning X cost" - he will lie and pretend it's a trillion times the real number, pretend he'll have to fire more people than he actually employs and tell you that fart goblins will crawl up the toilet and bite your asshole if you ban X.
He'll say ANYTHING to ensure X keeps making him money - and he won't care who dies so he can do it.

Re:Brain surgery

[RPI Geek]

While you might be still living the wild 60s, the rest of the world moved on. We invented something called catalytic converter that at least since mid 80s made this a non-issue.

Catalytic converters need expensive Platinum to work, and they reduce performance by forcing the exhaust through their baffles. Why would a competitive car manufacturer install a device that simultaneously increased the price and decreased the performance of their product? It certainly wasn't through pure benevolence.

Do they ever learn?

[rastos1]

In these sad times I would appreciate a story about a person wising up after an issue, that you warned about, backfired. Do you have some?

try worrying about pollution

[avandesande]

Lead in poor peoples drinking water for starters

Re:try worrying about pollution

[Anonymous Coward]

If there was a market for low-priced lead-free water someone would supply it.

The fact that none of them has taken it upon themselves to make a nice living doing so just shows that not only do they deserve to be poor but they deserve to be poisoned too.
--
roman_mir

Re:Shouldn't people be fired for incompetence?

[al0ha]

Wow nice linking to fake news sites, except for the Denver Post link which had absolutely nothing to do with sound scientific research.

Trump much?

Facts get in the way.

[ITRambo]

Trump and his cronies, advisers, and buddies, can't let facts get in the way of their beliefs.

Re:Facts get in the way.

[sdinfoserv]

Almost - they can't let facts (or laws) get in the way of extracting profit from people and the environment.
Remember, he promised jobs; just like the way China grew it's economy at 10% annually for over a decade.
We should not be surprised when we end up with the same toxic waste land that has Beijing : China has 7 of the 10 most polluted cities in the world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Of course if your a capitalist, you can just claim this is fake news and continue your pillage.

All the scientists

[Dan East]

Since more scientists are better, why doesn't the government just employ ALL the scientists? This 18 member panel didn't actually do scientific work, but they reviewed the scientific work of the actual working scientists, so that makes them more like bureaucratic scientists? The scientific work produced by the EPA should be peer reviewed in any case, and not reviewed by a static group of scientists that almost certainly have a net bias towards the viewpoints of whatever administration made the decision to hire each of them.

The academics usually serve two three-year stints, and they were told by Obama administration officials and career EPA staffers that they would stay on for another term.

Well that's just ridiculous. I hope no one believed that had any merit in reality.

Not political?

[mi]

The EPA is treating this scientific advisory board like its members are political appointees when these committees are not political positions. The individuals on these boards are appointed based on scientific expertise not politics.

Could someone name two or three of the dismissed people, for whom he can vouch that they do not have a Che Guevara T-shirt?

Foxes in the Henhouse

[Comboman]

A spokesman for the henhouse comfirmed that he's thinking of replacing the roosters with "chicken experts" (i.e. foxes).

Re: Shouldn't people be fired for incompetence?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your first link is a google list of fake news sites.

That gold mine spill was because the gold miner was illegally storing waste water. The EPA didn't cause a thing. The fault is 100% the gold miners.

See, what mining companies do is they mine, store their toxic waste on site, extract the profits to their investors, go into debt, pay their investors even more money, then go bankrupt and leave the taxpayers wth the cleanup bill.
Privatize profits, socialize the costs.
Then conservatives use this shit as "proof" how bad the EPA is.
It's like lie that Mitch McConnell (R-KY) invented that the EPA has a war on coal when in fact the decline in coal is 100% caused by the free markets that conservatives worship.

See, the EPA is the fall guy that businesses use to hide their exploitation of us and our environment.

And stupid people beleive the lie because they think the business community has nothing but their interests at heart.

Is it irony or cluelessness? How can you tell

[Anonymous Coward]

Elections have consequences. In this case, America spoke with a single unified voice

Is that intended to be ironic? If so, you need to understand that irony is invisible on the internet, since it is camouflaged by the ubiquitous cluelessness pervasive on comment posts.

If this is not intended to be ironic: that's ironic. Because, in fact, America did not speak with a single unified voice.

and declared that we are sick of all the burdensome environmental regulations destroying our lives and careers and they need some one to rain them in.

If this is intended as ironic: ROFL on the phrase "rain them in."

If it's not intended as ironic: that's ironic.

Re:Is it irony or cluelessness? How can you tell

[Jason Levine]

Bah! You elitists with your "facts" and "actual definitions of irony." I'm proposing that we name Alanis Morissette to be in charge of the definition of irony.

Next up: Literally changing the definition of "literally."

Re:Is it irony or cluelessness? How can you tell

[Merk42]

Next up: Literally changing the definition of "literally."

That literally already happened

Re:Shouldn't people be fired for incompetence?

[David_Hart]

The academics who sit on the board advise the EPA's scientific board on whether its research is sound.

Ok, then if you are producing a bunch of faulty research that is getting past these advisors, why should they not be fired? They obviously are not working out.

I mean the EPA actually CAUSED more pollution than they have prevented in recent years, without any consequence - so there is some major house cleaning to be done there.

So... in your mind one accidental spill by the EPA is more pollution than all of the pollution prevented across the US through EPA laws over that year... I'd like to see your scientific calculations to prove this assertion. Somehow I think that your opinion is tragically flawed.

All Cretans are liars

[Hognoxious]

she declared, "There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts"

Before adding, "apart from that one, obviously."

Wrong Way Around

[jasnw]

Actually, this isn't inserting politics into science as stated, it's more like a continuation of the removal of science and all its annoying reliance on real facts from politics/governance.

Some additional sources

[Geoffrey.landis]

Other sources reporting the story:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...

http://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/2017/05/08/epa-michigan-state-professor/101429388/

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/epa-boots-at-least-5-scientists-off-board-may-favor-replacements-from-industry/

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/08/politics/epa-scott-pruitt-board/

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/the-epa-just-got-rid-of-a-bunch-of-scientists-on-its-top-review-board-vgtrn

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/05/08/EPA-dismisses-five-members-of-scientific-review-board/6031494254095/

Nine

[Geoffrey.landis]

From looking at the other stories, apparently the number of scientist dismissed (in the story here listed as "at least five") is nine.
From http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/08/... :

"An EPA spokesman told CNN there are a total of 18 positions on this particular advisory board, and nine of those scientists were not renewed following the end of their three-year term."

Re: Nine

[PoopJuggler]

A bureaucracy is not necessarily a bad thing. Look at OSHA and how much better working conditions are for millions of Americans because of them.

Re:They EPA is faking research

[Sique]

The scientists may be smart. but as a agency, the EPA is faking research to justify regulations.

Actually, there is no evidence of faking research. There is the accusation of using "secret science". The accusation as it stands is just this: an accusation.

Re:Shouldn't people be fired for incompetence?

[thaylin]

American Stinker is one of the fakest news sites out there, far worse than CNN. against my better judgement I clicked on that one, and it was basically just a bunch of accusations, no actual evidence that I could see. In fact one of the "bad" things the epa did is pay people to try and peer review the work, OH GAWD the horror.

Truer words were never spoken

[smooth wombat]

"There's no such thing, unfortunately, anymore as facts."

When "alternative facts" are said to be true because they're declared to be true, when vaccines are once again said to cause autism, when the settled science of climate change is used as the reason to build a sea wall around a golf course while at the same time declared to be fiction concocted by a foreign government, it is quite clear the manipulation of the uneducated is the end goal.

This whole debacle of declaring untrue what is patently true is a page taken right out of Putin's playbook. Lie, lie, deny and make the other person appear to be the one who has to prove anything despite the overwhelming evidence already presented.

Re: Shouldn't people be fired for incompetence?

[avandesande]

Miners weren't illegally storing waste water. A mine exposes non-oxidized rocks (usually sulfides) to air and they become oxidized. These oxidized rocks are then easily leached by water and create acidic mineral laden water. This process happens naturally over time but can be accelerated by tunneling deeply into the rocks.

Re:Science and politics?

[GameboyRMH]

Horseshit. If one political party accepts science and the other rejects it, using that science to make decisions not equate to supporting the party that accepts it. If Democrats believed that foodborne illnesses were caused by demons, the FDA would not be furthering a political ideology.

Where we would like to think that *somehow* facts will win the argument, there are way to many alternate realities floating around with their on version of facts and truth these days.

Fuck that. An abundance of lies does not mean we can't have an objective reality.

Re:Shouldn't people be fired for incompetence?

[whoever57]

the democrats who have run MI have dropped the ball for decades, cant do anything when the locals keep voting the same people in. they get the government they deserve, as we all do

So, in your mind, the problems in Flint were nothing to do with the emergency manager, appointed by a Republican governor, who decided to supply Flint with acidic water, against technical advice?

Re:Science and politics?

[swillden]

Horseshit. If one political party accepts science and the other rejects it, using that science to make decisions not equate to supporting the party that accepts it. If Democrats believed that foodborne illnesses were caused by demons, the FDA would not be furthering a political ideology.

All true. However, I have to bring up some of the points mentioned by the AC that got modded down to -1, because he wasn't entirely wrong. Democrats -- thanks mostly to the element of the party from the education-loving Northeast -- tend to take a more favorable view of educated opinions, and therefore science, but they're far from perfect. In particular, anywhere that science conflicts with other elements of their ideology, science loses, e.g. all of the science that shows that GMOs are safe. Both parties take an anti-scientific perspective on nuclear power (though the Dems are worse on this issue than the Reps). The Democrats most often diverge from science when it interferes with the anti-establishment element of the party from the left coast. The Republicans most often diverge from science when it interferes with the religious right element from the deep south. But there are other cases for both.

There is no "party of science". There are two parties that each have their own bundle of ideological views, derived from the allied subcultures that compose them, and both love science when it supports their ideology and ignore/hate it when it contradicts. On the whole, Democrats are more pro-science than Republicans, but not in every area.

Where we would like to think that *somehow* facts will win the argument, there are way to many alternate realities floating around with their on version of facts and truth these days.

Fuck that. An abundance of lies does not mean we can't have an objective reality.

Indeed we can... and it starts by objectively comparing your own and your party's beliefs with the best ground truth knowledge available, which is provided by science, and admitting where they do and don't coincide.

Personally, I find it's easiest to do that if you avoid being emotionally tied to either party.

Let's talk about money being bad in elections...

[mpercy]

In the Georgia 6th District race--and this data is from *before* the jungle primary held a few weeks ago...

"Jon Ossoff on Wednesday announced record haul in the race for Georgia’s 6th congressional district, a stunning figure for the previously unknown Democrat.

"Ossoff’s raised more than $8.3 million in advance of April 18’s special election, a number 17 times greater than his nearest competitors in the multi-party election and an apparent record for a congressional candidate in a single quarter.

"For context, that’s more than former 6th District Congressman Tom Price raised in his last three campaigns spanning six years.

"But nearly all of that money has come thanks to a progressive non-profit named ActBlue. They offer “simple, intuitive tools” to help “Democratic campaigns get more donations”. The left-leaning web site Daily Kos has set up an online ActBlue portal to donate to Ossoff.
[Daily Kos is a for-profit media conglomerate, clearly engaging in open a flagrant campaigning and finance spending].

"So far, of Ossoff’s $8.3 million raised, ActBlue donations make up $7.7 million.

"just 6 percent of Ossoff’s donors live in Georgia. He had more donations from California, New York, and Massachusetts than from Georgia.

If Ossoff win's I will be shocked if I hear a single word about the disparities in money, even from all the people at Public Citizen who cry every day about corporations and big money corrupting elections (and especially cry about Citizen's United).

We did not

[fyngyrz]

Well America, you voted for this clown and gave support to his enablers

We (the plurality) voted for Clinton. By almost 3 million votes. Trump lost the vote of the citizens.

A very small group, specifically the electoral college, put Trump in there. The voters didn't. It's a technical win at best. What it isn't is an indication that he actually won the hearts and minds of the US population. He didn't. He still hasn't. There's no sign he ever will.

Aztec brain surgery: cutting w/o knowledge

[fyngyrz]

A Scientist might say that you could get cancer from, you know, carcinogens, so they should be removed from cigarettes, or cigarettes should be not sold to children who are not assumed able to make informed decisions. Or pregnant women. Or stupid people.

An industry expect would say, sure, but we have this cute camel, see, and the kids love it, and besides, no one wants to hear that shit about cancer, so we'll just keep on keeping on, eh? Which is exactly what they did.

THAT is what happens when there is no scientific oversight with punch.

Science brought you everything good you have. Science is the dirt technology grows in. Unscientific hand-waving is the dirt that lung cancer from cigarettes and tailpipes and dirty coal power plants grows in.

Re:They EPA is faking research

[Maritz]

Your article shows an accusation. From a Texas senator. lol. I bet you can tell us a whole lot about science.