U.S. District Court for D.C. Upholds Trump EPA Ban of  Conflicted Science Advisors

E&E Legal’s Steve Milloy Instrumental in Initiating and Pushing the Issue Forward

For Immediate Release:
February 13, 2019

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202-810-2001

Washington, D.C. – Yesterday, the U.S. District Court for DC upheld the Trump Administration’s Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) efforts to clean up cronyism in how coveted scientific posts are awarded, and thereby minimizing the likelihood of rubber-stamping policies pushed by a particular Administration.

Steve Milloy, The Energy & Environment Legal Institute’s (E&E Legal’s) Senior Policy Fellow and member of the Trump EPA Transition Team, first brought the issue to light more than 8 years ago.  The Obama Administration had stacked key EPA advisory committees with scientists who not only supported his ‘War of Coal’ but were also paid handsomely through separate EPA grants worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

“Yesterday’s U.S. District Court decision was a great step in restoring integrity to the critically important role that the scientific advisory committees play in formulating and promulgating environmental policy,” said Milloy.  “Given the unlimited resources of the Left, however, this issue is far from settled, and we can expect future court challenges before it’s etched in stone.”

In May of 2016, led by Milloy, E&E Legal sued Obama’s EPA over its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee Particulate Matter Review Panel for 2015-2018 (CASAC PM Panel).  As Milloy noted at the time, “The EPA has stacked the panel, which is required by law to be independent and unbiased, with researchers who have received over $190 million in discretionary grants from the EPA.  This clearly violates the law and makes a mockery of the notion of ‘independent’ scientific review.”

As part of his role on the Trump EPA Transition Team, Milloy, who literally wrote the book on how to reform the EPA, proposed several policy ideas including preventing scientists who receive funding from the EPA to sit on the coveted CASAC advisory committee.  Early in the Trump Administration, President Trump and his EPA took steps to clean up the EPA, as Milloy noted at the time in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.  In the fall of 2017, then Administrator Scott Pruitt relied heavily on Milloy’s proposal regarding CASAC and turned it into a proposed rule.

The suit against President Trump’s EPA’s attempts to restore integrity to the scientific process was brought, among other groups, by the Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), a leftist organization that receives significant funding from George Soros and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

“Organizations led by Soros and the Rockefeller heirs have a long history of using front groups like PSR to push ‘global warming’ and now ‘climate change’ to eradicate fossil fuels in America, thereby killing our economy, destroying jobs, and sending countless poor and elderly into ‘energy poverty,'” noted E&E Legal President Craig Richardson.  “The fact that these front groups can oppose a rule that attempts to end blatant conflicts of interest such as what occurred under the Obama Administration’s EPA shows how desperate they are to push leftist globalist policies that can be seen most succinctly in the recent Green New Deal.”

The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) is a 501(c)(3) organization that champions responsible and balanced environmentalism which seeks to conserve the nation’s natural resources while ensuring a stable and strong economy through energy dominance. Specifically, E&E Legal advocates responsible resource development, conservation, sound science, and a respect for property rights.

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