By Maria Hegstad
House Democrats and a Columbia University law professor are detailing possible legal arguments that could be used to challenge Administrator Scott Pruitt’s controversial new directive barring scientists who are receiving an EPA research grant from serving on one of its scientific advisory committees.
In a Nov. 3 letter to Pruitt, top leaders of the House science and energy and commerce committees charged that the policy appears to violate the requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which is generally intended to ensure that advisory committees are balanced, as well as conflict of interest regulations set by the General Services Agency and the Office of Government Ethics (OGE).
And Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, says in a Nov. 3 blog post that Pruitt’s new policy “runs counter to existing conflict-of-interests law, and is on its face arbitrary and capricious, in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.” He urged scientists who are currently on EPA advisory panels and may be subject to the directive not to step down from any of the advisory panels or withhold their applications to any of the panels before “Pruitt’s policy [is] subject to judicial review, and EPA forced to defend its indefensible position in court.”
Read the article Critics Float Legal Theories To Challenge Pruitt's Science Advisor Policy in Columbia Law School's Scholarship Archive.