Why Would the EPA Need Science Advisors?
On This Day In 2018
Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency was in shambles. Its Cabinet-level director, Scott Pruitt, had resigned "under a cloud of ethical scandals" after only a year in office. (As the Guardian put it, “Lobbyists, hand lotion and Chick-fil-A – it’s hard to keep up with the scandals engulfing the former EPA administrator.” And CNN detailed over 30 controversies swirling around him.)
There was a desperate need for the adults in the room to stabilize the agency. So, OTDI 2018, the Trump Administration announced that the EPA would…eliminate its Office of Science Advisor.
Really? Why, in this Age of Science, would they do such a thing? The EPA’s press office claimed it was to eliminate redundancies and streamline the agency. But environmental advocates knew better: “Everything from research on chemicals and health, to peer-review testing to data analysis would inevitably suffer,” said Michael Halpern, the deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy with the UCS. “It’s certainly a pretty big demotion, a pretty big burying of this office.”
Science was treated as something to be avoided throughout the Trump years. The New York Times pointed out that virtually all of cabinet-level agencies lacked any scientific expertise.
But the public should at least learn about science, right? Apparently not! Just weeks after Trump’s team took over, his EPA removed any mention from its website about climate change.
Biden/Harris changed all that, and more. Once they brought sanity and rationality back to the EPA, the new Administration established two internal science policy advisory councils. They also created a new senior-level career position to serve as a science policy advisor.
And they created a cabinet-level Office of Science and Technology Policy, headed by Arati Prabhakar, who served under Presidents Clinton and Obama. She also carries the title of “Presidential Science Advisor,” in a pointed rejection of the Trumpian anti-science craziness.
(But it's reasonable to assume that job would cease to exist should Trump win this election.)
Don’t Get Dumber, Dive Deeper
The Guardian, CNN, and the NYT detail Pruitt’s scandals
NYT reports on the plan of Trump’s EPA to dissolve science office
NYT reports that anti-science theme runs throughout Trump Administration
Biden-era EPA announcement on new science roles
The Scientist reports on Biden’s nomination of new advisor