Nine AGs Filed Amicus Brief Objecting to Removal of Independent Scientists from EPA Advisory Committees

JUNE 27, 2018

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson led a coalition of nine attorneys general in an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs in Physicians for Social Responsibility, et al. v. E. Scott Pruitt objecting to the removal of independent scientists from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Science Advisory Board. The attorneys general noted that EPA’s new directive “Strengthening and Improving Membership on EPA Advisory Committees” used the pretense of potential conflicts of interest to force scientists receiving EPA funding for academic research to resign their advisory board positions, “despite the lack of any documented ethical problems” and decades of EPA precedent. The attorneys general also noted in their amicus brief that EPA’s directive does not apply to industry-funded or industry-employed members of the Science Advisory Board, including members that represent private interests well within the scope of the EPA’s regulatory authority.