EPA scientific integrity in the balance: what’s at stake

A recent decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to restrict membership of the agency’s many advisory boards not only jeopardizes the quality and independence of those boards, it amounts to scientific censorship and puts the health of Americans at risk.

The EPA has for decades relied on university-based researchers for independent and expert advice to advance its mission of protecting human health and the environment through these advisory boards. Distinguished academic researchers have served on the EPA’s Chartered Science Advisory Board, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, the Board of Scientific Counselors, and similar agency panels charged with guiding its scientific decisions. 

But the quality and independence of these advisory bodies – and, ultimately, the health of all Americans – has been jeopardized by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s recent decision to exclude academic researchers who receive EPA grant funding from serving on the agency’s scientific review boards. University researchers who are experts in the relevant science and who have dedicated their professional lives to serving the American public and advancing environmental quality are being shut out, replaced by representatives of industries the agency is supposed to regulate.

The move to bar scientists with EPA funding is, simply put, scientific censorship. While purportedly issued in the name of ethics, Pruitt’s directive applies only to independent academic scientists and not to industry representatives who may have a real conflict of interest. Current EPA ethics practices prevent a university-based scientist from advising on a subject for which they have EPA funding, but industry representatives will not be prohibited from weighing in on regulations that could affect their business. This new directive is clearly political, not ethical.

Federally funded research serves the public interest by providing unbiased science – a critical ingredient needed to develop policies that protect the public from air and water pollution. Those engaged in this research are best positioned to translate scientific findings to protect the health of the public. Pruitt’s actions serve to marginalize the science in favor of those who seek to profit from environmental policy decisions at EPA.

Pruitt claims to want advisors who “are providing independent, arms-length input to us as we make decisions." In truth, this new policy is a thinly veiled action to replace independent science experts with advisors who will rubber stamp this administration’s political agenda. This action overturns the EPA’s tried and true practice of using rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific evidence to formulate and support sound public policy.

What’s at stake? This attack on scientific integrity at EPA is not only disheartening. It likely will result in long-lasting damage to our society by diminishing public health protections we all rely upon, denigrating science at this critically important federal agency, and eroding trust of Americans in the proper use of science to inform policy. We must all support the true independence of science advice and review. Our lives and our well-being depend upon it.

Peter S. Thorne, PhD, is professor and head of the Department of Occupational & Environmental Health at the University of Iowa. Thorne had served two three-year terms on the Science Advisory Board and was nominated to continue serving as Chair, but the nomination was withdrawn and he no longer serves on the board.

Deborah L. Swackhamer, PhD, is professor emerita of Environmental Health Sciences and Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. She is a former chair of the EPA Science Advisory Board.