Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

EDITORIAL:

Respect for science back in style at Environmental Protection Agency

Regan

Caroline Brehman / AP

In this Feb. 3, 2021, photo, Environmental Protection Agency administrator Michael Regan speaks during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works committee on Capitol Hill in Washington.

After four years in which scientific reports from the federal government were manipulated and sometimes outright deleted by non-scientists for ideological purposes or by unqualified scientists distorting the truth for ideological ends, the Biden administration is returning to normal order.

Among his first official actions, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan took a key step back toward the scientific-based approach that has helped the EPA protect Americans for 50 years. He did it by resetting two key advisory committees with an eye toward filling them with qualified scientists whose only drive is the discovery of truth and a focus on public good.

Regan’s start-over involved removing members of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) and the Science Advisory Board (SAB), which the previous administration had stacked with industry-connected scientists who had represented Big Oil, chemical companies and other polluters. Regan committed to returning to the standard, scientifically based process for appointing new members, noting that the Trump-era members were welcome to reapply and would be considered based on their credentials and experience. But pre-Trump selection standards will apply to all potential board members.

“Scientific integrity is a foundational value for EPA,” Regan said. “And I am committing to ensuring that every single decision we make meets rigorous scientific standards.”

This is as it should be. It’s a proper role of government, and it respects expertise after a period where expertise was trampled and science was disdained.

It’s a refreshing change from the previous administration, which deleted climate change information from government websites, halted studies on pollution and global warming, banned government experts from using such terms as “evidence-based” and “science-based” to describe their research, buried dozens of reports on the effects of climate change, and disciplined or muzzled government researchers for reporting facts that are at odds with the administration’s ideologies on the environment, climate, etc.

Now comes Regan, who is returning the situation to normal by removing scientific advisory committee members who appeared to be selected for their ideological biases rather than their scientific credentials. These are individuals like Louis Anthony “Tony” Cox, who had served as a consultant for the oil, coal, pork and chemical industries before being appointed by the Trump administration to lead the seven-member Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee. Cox’s appointment raised concerns in the science community, which turned to alarm when he accused the EPA of using bad science and subjectivity in a report about the health risks of small-particle air pollution. The scientists were right to be upset: The report was the product of a study of 2,800 papers by more than 50 global experts on air pollution, and was peer-reviewed by an additional 52 scientists. Cox’s critics accused him of using bad science himself in an attempt to subvert the report and loosen the EPA’s standards for air quality.

It’s important to note that Cox, a Denver-based risk assessment consultant, was qualified to be a member of the committee. The same applies to other Trump appointees.

But they were nevertheless part of an upending of the committees by the Trump administration, which disrupted them first by imposing an illegal directive barring anyone from receiving EPA research grants from serving on the panels. That shut the door to many independent scientists and opened an entryway for appointments of industry consultants. While it’s beneficial for the members with knowledge of industry to serve on the boards, as they’re aware of technology and procedures being used by businesses to reduce pollution, soon the makeup of the boards was heavily tilted toward industry-connected members.

Although the administration later rescinded the membership restriction after losing a court challenge, the Trump appointees stayed in place. And some of them, like Cox, appeared to have a business-friendly agenda.

Regan’s reset is a responsible action that will improve Americans’ health and well-being.

“It’s absolutely warranted,” Christopher Zarba, a retired EPA employee who directed the office that coordinates with scientific committees, said to The Washington Post. “Lots and lots of the best people were excluded from being considered.”

The move has met resistance from the GOP, with House members James Comer of Kentucky and Ralph Norman of South Carolina accusing Biden and Regan of politicizing the EPA. That criticism is unfortunate and more than a little hypocritical, however, given the Republican Party’s embrace of the Trump administration’s ideologically driven war on science and its rollbacks of environmental protections to benefit industries.

The bottom line is that government needs to work for the good of the entire nation and provide Americans with the truth about the environment, climate change, public health, and so on.

Thank goodness we’re getting back to normal again, where we can rely on the government and its many experts to give us a clear picture of the world around us.