On April 15, 2025, the Trump administration canceled a meeting of top advisors to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Research and Development (ORD). The Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC) was created in 1996 to serve as an independent federal advisory committee for all aspects of ORD’s research programs, including evaluating and providing feedback on the research being performed. Members of BOSC were informed that their first meeting of Trump’s second term was canceled, but no information was provided as to why the meeting was canceled or if it would be rescheduled.
ORD is the EPA’s only technical and scientific research arm, and provides answers to scientific questions from EPA program offices, regions, states, and tribes. According to Jeremy Symons, a former EPA advisor, “[EPA Secretary Lee Zeldin] wants the science to go away because it shines a light on the very real public health costs of the regulatory rollbacks that he’s planning.”