EPA Mission Tracker

The Washington Post reported that the White House is considering creating a new federal panel: the Presidential Committee on Climate Security. If formed, this committee would conduct an adversarial review of recent […]

In its latest two-step, the EPA once again is deliberately narrowing the frame through which it obtains scientific analysis of the link between air pollution and public health. First, the agency is excluding qualified scientists from the Clean Air Science Advisory Committee (CASAC), the independent group charged by the Clean Air Act with providing the EPA with scientific advice on air quality standards. Second, the EPA disbanded the additional panel of experts it had formed to review the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for Particulate Matter, leaving just the now re-constituted seven-member main CASAC to cover a Herculean scientific task.

As part of the public comment process, a group of 97 medical and public health experts affiliated with Harvard University submitted a detailed comment outlining the proposal’s misunderstanding of how science works. These signatories ranged from the leading epidemiologists who conducted some of the studies under attack to department chiefs at world-class hospitals who rely on advances in science to treat patients on a daily basis.