EPA advisory panel urges Wheeler to bring back fired experts

摘要

A fractured EPA advisory panel is asking for help as its ability to handle a high-stakes review of particulate matter standards is under harsh scrutiny. At a public teleconference yesterday, the seven-member Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee agreed to recommend that EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler reconvene an auxiliary panel of experts he abruptly fired last October — or name a new panel made up of members with similar know-how. There's no assurance, however, the EPA chief will honor the request. A former contract lobbyist whose clients had included the nation's largest privately owned coal company, Wheeler has given little explanation for his decision to disband the auxiliary panel, which was charged with helping the main committee in its review of the existing national limits on airborne particulate pollution (Greenwire, Oct. 12, 2018). In an email this afternoon, an EPA spokeswoman said Wheeler will take all of the committee's advice under consideration. Tony Cox, a Denver-based consultant who chairs the committee, said in an email that members have not discussed how to proceed if Wheeler rejects it. Also unclear is whether revival of the auxiliary panel would act as a drag on completing the review by EPA's self-imposed deadline of December 2020.