December, 21 2017, 02:30pm EDT
![Earthjustice](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012672/origin.jpg)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Neil Gormley, Staff Attorney, Earthjustice, (202) 797-5239, ngormley@earthjustice.orgÂ
Daveon Coleman, Press Secretary, Earthjustice, (608) 216-4648, dcoleman@earthjustice.org
Michael Burger, Volunteer Attorney, Columbia Environmental Law Clinic, Executive Director, Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, (212) 854-2372, mburger@law.columbia.edu
Susan J. Kraham, Senior Staff Attorney, Columbia Environmental Law Clinic, 212 854-4291, skraha@law.columbia.edu
Tiffany Challe, Communications Associate, CELC/Sabin Center, (212) 854-0594, tc2868@columbia.eduÂ
Doctors and Scientists Challenge Removal of EPA Science Advisers
Illegal Policy Undermines Integrity of Science and Threatens Public Health.
WASHINGTON
Today, a coalition of doctors, scientists, and professional groups are filing a lawsuit challenging EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt's attempt to remove highly qualified, independent scientists from advisory committees that ensure the integrity of science at the agency. EPA advisory committees provide crucial scientific and technical information to inform EPA decisions and review the scientific accuracy of EPA findings across a wide range of agency programs. Under a new policy, Pruitt is removing publicly funded scientists from the committees and replacing them with advocates for the polluting industries EPA is charged with regulating.
The parties to the suit are Physicians for Social Responsibility, National Hispanic Medical Association, and the International Society for Children's Health and Environment, on behalf of their members, and Professor Edward Avol, represented by the public-interest law firm Earthjustice, together with independent scientists Dr. Robyn Wilson and Dr. Joseph Arvai, represented by the Columbia Environmental Law Clinic, Morningside Heights Legal Services at Columbia Law School.
"If we can't do this work, we can't protect public health," said Deborah Cory-Slechta, a member of Physicians for Social Responsibility and a Professor of Environmental Medicine, Pediatrics, and Public Health Sciences at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Dr. Cory-Slechta conducts research to better understand the harmful effects of air pollution on the brain. Because she is a current member of the EPA Chemical Assessment Advisory Committee, the new policy makes her ineligible for EPA research grants.
"We're standing up to protect scientific integrity because Hispanic health care professionals and the communities they serve need a strong, effective EPA to safeguard their health," said Dr. Elena Rios, President of the National Hispanic Medical Association. "Scott Pruitt should not be allowed to use selective science to undermine critical health protections."
"EPA's effort to purge independent scientists from its advisory committees has harmful implications for the nation's health," said Physicians for Social Responsibility program director Barbara Gottlieb. "Losing top-flight academic researchers, and replacing them with industry-dependent voices, will undermine actions to protect us from toxic pollutants and life-threatening climate change. If EPA won't abandon this harmful approach, we're happy to take them to court."
"Publicly funded researchers who have devoted their professional lives to understanding these issues help EPA make the best use of limited resources, address gaps in scientific understanding, and leverage the best peer-reviewed research," said Professor Ed Avol of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, who joined the organizations' lawsuit as an affected individual. "It's discouraging to see that the Administrator of the very agency charged with protecting the public's environmental health doesn't value those researchers' participation."
"They're claiming the academic scientists and doctors are biased and then replacing them with industry representatives," said Earthjustice attorney Neil Gormley, the lead attorney on the case. "The hypocrisy is kind of stunning."
"This new directive by the Administrator is unnecessary, at best, and an explicit attack on science-informed policy, at worst," said Dr. Robyn Wilson, an Associate Professor of Risk Analysis and Decision Science in the School of Environment and Natural Resources at the Ohio State University. Wilson joined the lawsuit as one of the members of the Science Advisory Board forcibly removed as a result of the Directive. "There are already procedures in place to avoid a potential conflict-of-interest among advisory board members, which makes this latest effort seem to be more about stacking the board with members who will support the new Administration's deregulatory agenda."
"This is a classic case of the fox setting up shop in the henhouse," said Dr. Joseph Arvai, a former member of the EPA's Chartered Science Advisory Board. Dr. Arvai, who joined the suit as an affected individual, is the Max McGraw Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at the School for Environment & Sustainability, and the Ross School of Business, at the University of Michigan. "The Pruitt directive unfairly and unlawfully bars some of the nation's leading environmental and health scientists from providing science advice to the EPA; at the same time, it allows scientists from EPA-regulated companies and industries, as well junk scientists hired by their lobbyists, to rubber stamp rules and regulations that will compromise human and environmental health across the United States. Enough is enough."
"Scott Pruitt's directive is entirely unprecedented," said Michael Burger, a volunteer attorney with the Columbia Environmental Law Clinic and Executive Director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School. "Government agencies have relied on scientific experts serving as advisors and consultants for more than 50 years. Nobody before now has ever thought to ban all scientists receiving grants of any kind from an agency from serving in any way on its advisory committees. That's because it makes no sense."
The complaint filed today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia explains that Pruitt's new policy is an illegal attempt to override federal ethics rules and that it is arbitrarily biased in favor of polluting industries. If it's allowed to remain in effect, the policy will undermine the integrity of EPA science and introduce pro-polluter bias into agency decisions and programs.
The complaint asks the Court to declare the policy unlawful and arbitrary and throw it out. It also asks the Court to prohibit EPA from removing any more scientists under the policy and direct EPA to reinstate the scientists who were disqualified.
The publicly funded scientists being removed by Pruitt are experts and leaders in their fields of study, including cancer, children's health, asthma and other respiratory diseases, epidemiology, the hazards posed by chemicals in the home, and risk analysis and decision science. Over several years of distinguished service, they have helped ensure that EPA makes decisions based on scientific merit and not on politics.
Pruitt's chosen replacements appear handpicked to put the interests of polluting industries ahead of sound science, public health, and the environment. Virtually all of them have financial connections to polluting industries, hold pro-pollution views that are outside the scientific mainstream, or both. Specifically, of Pruitt's 18 new appointees to the EPA Science Advisory Board,
- 7 currently draw paychecks from polluting industries;
- 4 more have a history of taking money from polluters; and
- 5 more have a history of echoing the talking points of industrial polluters and rejecting mainstream science.
One of Pruitt's appointees to the Science Advisory Board, Robert Phalen, claims that air pollution is good for children and that "modern air is a little too clean for optimum health." Michael Honeycutt, another Pruitt appointee, denies the overwhelming scientific evidence that smog causes asthma and has suggested that more smog would be a "health benefit." As a regulator in Texas, he has opposed stricter limits on mercury and arsenic releases, and actually weakened state protections for benzene, a widespread and extremely potent carcinogen. Honeycutt will now chair the Science Advisory Board.
Earthjustice is a non-profit public interest law firm dedicated to protecting the magnificent places, natural resources, and wildlife of this earth, and to defending the right of all people to a healthy environment. We bring about far-reaching change by enforcing and strengthening environmental laws on behalf of hundreds of organizations, coalitions and communities.
800-584-6460LATEST NEWS
Critics Warn Manchin-Barrasso Permitting Bill 'Is Taken Straight From Project 2025'
"You thought Project 2025 was just a threat after the election? It's actually happening *right now,*" said one climate campaigner.
Jul 26, 2024
Climate and environmental defenders on this week implored U.S. senators to block a permitting reform bill introduced this week by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that one campaigner linked to Project 2025, a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right overhaul of the federal government.
Common Dreamsreported Monday that Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Barrasso (R-Wyo.)—respectively the chair and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted that although the proposal "includes several positive reforms for the accelerated development of transmission projects," it also advocates "limiting opportunities for communities to challenge projects, loosening oversight for drilling and mining projects, extending drilling permits and fast-tracking [liquified natural gas] permits, and several other provisions friendly to fossil fuel giants."
"This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
These are nearly identical policies to what's proposed in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. The plan, which was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, calls for "unleashing all of America's energy resources," including by ending federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands; limiting investments in renewable energy; and rolling back environmental permitting restrictions for new oil, gas, and coal projects, including power plants.
While Manchin has been trying—and failing—to pass fossil fuel-friendly permitting reform legislation for years, Brett Hartl, director of public affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that his "Frankenstein legislation is taken straight from Project 2025, and it's the biggest giveaway in decades to the fossil fuel industry."
Hartl said the bill "deprives communities of the power to defend themselves and gives that power to Big Oil by making it harder for communities to challenge polluting projects in court," and "prioritizes the profits of coal barons over public health."
"And it mandates oil and gas extraction in our oceans," he continued. "The insignificant crumbs thrown at renewable energy do nothing to address the climate emergency."
"Monday was the hottest day in recorded history," Hartl noted. "It's shocking that as the climate emergency continues to break records around us, the Senate continues to fast-track the fossil fuel expansion that is killing us. This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
Hartl added that "to preserve a livable planet," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "must squash this legislation now."
Manchin—who has said this will be his last term in office—has been a steadfast supporter of the fossil fuel industry, partly because his family owns a coal company. The senator says his permitting reform bill "will advance American energy once again to bring down prices, create domestic jobs, and allow us to continue in our role as a global energy leader."
However, Allie Rosenbluth, Oil Change International's U.S. manager, warned Thursday that "this bill is yet another dangerous attempt by Sen. Manchin to line the pockets of his fossil fuel donors, sacrificing communities and our climate along the way."
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else," she continued. "It would unleash more drilling on federal lands and waters, unnecessarily rush the review of proposed oil and gas export projects, and lift the Biden administration's pause on new LNG exports."
"We urge Congress to reject this proposal and commit to action that protects frontline communities from the impacts of fossil fuel development and the climate crisis," Rosenbluth added.
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else."
NRDC managing director of government affairs Alexandra Adams said Wednesday that "this bill is a giveaway for the oil and gas industry that will ramp up drilling and environmental destruction at a time when we need to be putting a hard stop to fossil fuels."
"We cannot afford to roll back so many of our bedrock environmental and community legal protections and offer a blank check to the oil and gas industry," she stressed. "We need new solutions for permitting if we are going to meet our clean energy potential and address the climate challenge. But this is not it."
"This bill would altogether be a leap backward on climate, health, and justice if passed into law," Adams added. "The Senate should reject it and look toward alternative solutions already being considered."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Nothing To Eat': War-Torn Sudan Faces Mass Famine as Military Delays Aid
Both parties in Sudan's civil war are to blame for a looming mass famine, experts say, and the military's blocking of U.N. aid at a border crossing with Chad exacerbates the problem.
Jul 26, 2024
Sudan's military is blocking United Nations aid trucks from entering at a key border crossing, causing severe disruptions in aid in a country that experts fear may be on the brink of one of the worst famines the world has seen in decades, The New York Timesreported Friday.
The border city of Adré in eastern Chad is the main international crossing into the Darfur region of Sudan, but the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the state's official military, which is engaged in a civil war with a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has refused to issue permits for U.N. trucks to enter there, as it's an RSF-controlled area.
U.S. and international officials have issued increasingly alarmed calls for steady aid access to help feed the millions of severely malnourished people in Darfur and other areas of Sudan.
Last week, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the U.N., said that the SAF's obstruction of the border was "completely unacceptable."
Both warring parties in Sudan continue to perpetrate brazen atrocities, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. This piece focuses on the SAF's ongoing obstruction of essential aid. The situation is catastrophic. The policy is criminal. https://t.co/FKhqQh3EI9.
— Tom Dannenbaum (@tomdannenbaum) July 26, 2024
The Sudanese who've made it out of the country and into Adré reported dire and unsafe conditions in their home country.
"We had nothing to eat," Bahja Muhakar, a Sudenese mother of three, told the Times after she crossed into Chad, following a harrowing six-day journey from Al-Fashir, a major city in Darfur. She said the family often had to live off of one shared pancake per day.
Another mother, Dahabaya Ibet, said that her 20-month-old boy had to bear witness to his grandfather being shot and killed in front of his eyes when the family home in Darfur was attacked by gunmen late last year.
Now the mothers and their families are refugees in Adré, where 200,000 Sudanese are living in an overcrowded, under-resourced transit camp.
In addition to those that have made it out of the country, there are 11 million people internally displaced within Sudan, most of whom have become displaced since the civil war began in April 2023.
An unnamed senior American official told the Times that the looming famine in Sudan could be as bad as the 2011 famine in Somalia or even the great Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
In April, Reutersreported that people in Sudan were eating soil and leaves to survive, and The Washington Postcalled it a nation in "chaos," reporting that World Food Program trucks had been "blocked, hijacked, attacked, looted, and detained."
In late June, a coalition of U.N. agencies, aid groups, and governments warned that 755,000 people in Sudan faced famine in the coming months.
The U.S. last week announced $203 million in additional aid to Sudan—part of a $2.1 billion pledge that world leaders made in April, which some countries have not yet delivered on.
Some officials including Thomas-Greenfield, who has dubbed the situation in Sudan "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world," have called for the U.N. Security Council to allow aid delivery into the country even in the absence of SAF approval; it's believed that Russia would veto such a measure.
Sudan's civil war has seen a great deal of international interference. Amnesty International on Thursday published an investigatory briefing showing that weapons from Russia, China, Serbia, Turkey, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been identified in the country. And The Guardian on Friday reported that the passports of Emirati citizens had been found among wreckage in Sudan, indicating the UAE may have troops or intelligence officers on the ground, though the UAE denied the accusation.
The International Service for Human Rights on Friday warned that both the SAF and RSF were engaged in wrongful killings and arrests, especially targeted at lawyers, doctors, and activists. The group called for an immediate cease-fire.
The SAF and Sudanese government figures have cast doubt on international experts' claims about famine in the country.
Keep ReadingShow Less
JD Vance Doubles Down on Attack on 'Childless Cat Ladies'
Vance "meant no disrespect to cats, but he did mean to demean women and still holds the view in 2024 that they should be punished for not having children."
Jul 26, 2024
After days of condemnation from critics including actress Jennifer Aniston and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Sen. JD Vance was given the opportunity on Thursday to clarify his remarks from 2021 in which he said the Democratic Party was run by "childless cat ladies."
Instead, the Ohio Republican and running mate of former President Donald Trump assured SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly on "The Megyn Kelly Show" that while he has "nothing against cats," he meant what he said in terms of "the substance" of his argument.
Vance made it clear, said Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), "that he meant no disrespect to cats, but he did mean to demean women and still holds the view in 2024 that they should be punished for not having children."
The comments in question were made by Vance to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson when Vance was running for the Senate.
Calling out Buttigieg—who, the secretary disclosed this week, was struggling at the time to adopt a child with his husband—and Vice President Kamala Harris, a stepmother of two and the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, Vance said people without biological children "don't really have a direct stake in" the future of the country and therefore shouldn't hold higher office.
In separate remarks that same year, Vance said parents should "have more power" at the voting booth and that "if you don't have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn't get nearly the same voice."
He also specifically categorized people who don't have children as "bad" in an interview in 2021, saying the government should "reward the things that we think are good" and "punish the things that we think are bad," with people taxed at a lower rate if they have children.
While a spokesperson for Vance told ABC News that the senator's taxation proposal was "basically no different" than the child tax credit supported by the Democratic Party, Democrats who have pushed for the credit have heralded its proven ability to slash child poverty rates and help families afford groceries, childcare, and other essentials, rather than viewing the tax savings as a way to reward people for procreating.
In his interview with Kelly on Thursday, Vance attempted to pivot away from his own comments, saying his point was to criticize "the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child" and claiming without evidence that the Harris campaign had "come out against the child tax credit"—a signature policy of the Biden-Harris administration.
"I'm proud to stand for parents and I hope that parents out there recognize that I'm a guy who wants to fight for you," said Vance. "The Democrats, in the past five, 10 years, Megyn, they have become anti-family. It's built into their policy, it's built into the way they talk about parents and children. I don't think we should back down from it, I think we should be honest about the problem."
Vance and Kelly went on to lament the anxiety "hardcore environmentalists" and progressive lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have expressed about the damage fossil fuel extraction is doing the planet, accusing them of pushing people to forgo having families—but said nothing about Republican policies that have made child-rearing less accessible.
In recent years, the entire Republican caucus in Congress was joined by conservative then-Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia in blocking the extension of the enhanced child tax credit, which had been credited with cutting the national child poverty rate in half. Republicans also allowed a pandemic-era universal school meal program to expire, while several Democratic-led states have passed state-level programs to ensure all children can have meals at school, regardless of their family's income.
Under Republican abortion bans, numerous stories have cropped up of pregnant people who have been forced to carry pregnancies to term despite finding out that their fetuses had fatal abnormalities and would die soon after birth—as have stories of children who were forced to give birth or had to cross state lines in order to get abortion care.
As with his position that nonparents should be "punished" for not having children, "who else does 'pro-child/family' Vance think should 'face consequences and reality' by way of curtailing choices, rights, and freedoms?" asked writer Alheli Picazo. "Women and girls who become pregnant through rape/incest."
University of North Carolina law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick said that one could test "empirically" Vance's claim that Democratic policies are anti-family.
"But I haven't heard the GOP talk much about things that would help my family and my kids," she said, "like reducing childcare and tuition costs."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular