Sean Reilly
E&E reporter

A conservative legal group has gone to court to block a U.S. EPA advisory panel from convening Monday on the grounds that its members aren’t independent of the agency.

In a federal lawsuit filed Friday, the Energy & Environment Legal Institute seeks a stay to bar the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee Particulate Matter Review Panel from holding an afternoon public teleconference until it has been “properly constituted” under the requirements of the Clean Air Act and the Federal Advisory Committee Act.

The institute also wants Judge Tanya Chutkan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to order EPA to consult with the group over the makeup of the review panel and require the agency to file a status report showing that the new panel members are free of agency influence.

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