Scientists quit EPA advisory board in protest

In solidarity with their fellow scientists who were kicked off the advisory board for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, two outside experts—engineer Carlos Martín and economist Peter Meyer—quit the EPA’s key scientific panel in protest. “We cannot in good conscience be complicit…in the watering down of credible science, engineering, and methodological rigor that is at the heart of that decision,” the two announced in an open letter on Twitter. Martín and Meyer had advised the agency on research related to the environmental cleanup of toxic waste and spills. They were particularly upset at the Trump administration’s refusal to renew the terms of the coleaders of the EPA’s 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors, Courtney Flint, a sociologist at Utah State University, and Robert Richardson, an environmental economist at Michigan State University. Martín and Meyer called the move “a shock from which we cannot easily recover nor which we readily accept.”