If the past few years haven’t yet turned your brain into sludge, you may remember when Scott Pruitt decided to revamp the EPA’s science advisory bodies, purging academics and replacing them with pseudo-experts that were hand-picked by polluters. Since then, further research showed the racial disparity in air pollution impacts, and the contracting out of a similar panel to provide expert advice and guidance on how strongly to regulate pollution.
Well, we can now see the difference that has made, as a panel of real experts that was disbanded has reconvened unofficially to offer advice, while the existing panel is offering, in the words of PoliticoPro’s coverage, “mixed opinions” about whether or not to strengthen pollution limits.
By putting industry lackey and Chamber of Commerce-nominated Tony Cox in charge of the EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Council, polluters guaranteed that the panel wouldn’t offer a unified view that pollution is bad and we should work to make sure fewer people are exposed to less of it.
Instead, he wrote that the assessment on PM2.5, (aka soot) “provides no valid scientific information” that changing the standard would reduce health risks, which is on its face an absurd statement, particularly with new research linking nearly 10,000 premature deaths with increases in PM2.5 pollution in 2018 alone.
But it’s made even more ridiculous when contrasted with the findings of the since-reconvened advisory panel of academics that Wheeler disbanded. A year after Wheeler removed them from acting as official advisors, they’ve reconvened as the Independent Particulate Matter Review Panel, and issued a letter Tuesday about the threat posed by this pollution. The group’s head Chris Frey struck a decidedly different tone than Cox, telling Grist that “the evidence is just so strong, it’s kind of mind-boggling.”
For more info you can check out a great blog post by Gretchen Goldman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, who has played host to the independent panel. Though it’s admittedly convoluted having an official and unofficial panel offering advice on whether or not to crack down on PM2.5 pollution, the bottom line is pretty clear.
The experts purged from the EPA are united and detailed in explaining that, well, pollution is bad and we should work to limit how many people are exposed to it. Meanwhile, the official advisory board is largely in agreement, except for the pollution apologists who were installed to do exactly what they’ve done: offer up excuses and distractions to create the appearance of disagreement when it comes to the science.
This is essentially a microcosm of the larger industry effort to cast doubt on the science. As PoliticoPRO’s coverage proves, even with an overwhelming majority of experts saying “pollution is bad,” it only takes a couple of dissenters to create the impression of “mixed opinions on whether the science supports tightening a key air quality standard for particulate matter.”
But the science isn’t mixed. Individual opinions about it may be, but as the story mentions, Cox is “a consultant whose clients have included the American Petroleum Institute.”
And to think, Pruitt and Wheeler claimed they needed Cox on the panel to prevent any conflicts of interest!
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