Trump purges scientists from the EPA’s science council

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is kicking scientists off its Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC), notifying 38 members that their terms will expire in August and won’t be renewed. This leaves just 11 science advisors come September. With every BOSC subcommittee missing a chair and vice chair, and with the executive committee down to only three members, the EPA has simply canceled upcoming board meetings until further notice. The move comes on the heels of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s dismissal of nine other scientists serving their first three-year term on this key scientific advisory committee. (Advisors are typically asked to serve a second term.) The agency is now asking for new nominations but has only given scientists until June 30 to apply. One former EPA science advisor, Peter Meyer, characterized the agency’s unprecedented action as an indication that “they do not want objective science." What this means: Our premier public health and environmental agency is canning objective researchers, apparently to make room for for-profit chemical manufacturers and ideologically driven non-scientists to decide whether toxic chemicals in our air, land, and water pose harm to all of us.