The EPA just scrapped air pollution advisory boards

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Cuddles, Oct 20, 2018.

  1. Cuddles

    Cuddles

    inb4 smog is fake lefty news

    https://www.popsci.com/epa-clean-air-science-committee-disbanded

    The EPA just scrapped two expert panels tasked with evaluating air pollution
    Some argue this is another step to take science out of the agency's decision making.

    When the Environmental Protection Agency announced last Wednesday that a seven-member advisory board would lead a review of national standards that safeguard the air we breathe, Christopher Frey wondered what that meant for the panel of 26 experts already selected by the agency in 2016 to do the job.

    It wasn't until the next day that Frey, a professor of environmental engineering at North Carolina State University and a consultant on the 26-person panel, received two forwarded emails from the EPA informing him that his expertise was no longer needed. The original panel created to study fine particulate matter—microscopic specks of dirt, soot, smoke, and other tiny pollutants—had been disbanded. The EPA also scrapped plans to assemble a similarly-sized expert group to review ozone, more commonly known as smog, a pollutant that constricts the airways and exacerbates respiratory conditions including asthma, emphysema, and chronic bronchitis.

    Instead, both national air quality standards will be reviewed by a pulmonary physician, five representatives from local, state, and federal environmental agencies (including an aquatic ecology and invasive species expert with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers), and a consultant whose clients have included the American Petroleum Institute, the American Chemistry Council, and tobacco company Philip Morris International. These seven individuals, many of whom were picked by Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler to independently advise the EPA on air issues, make up the Clean Air Science Advisory Committee, or CASAC.
     
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  2. Cuddles

    Cuddles

    Last edited: Oct 22, 2018
  3. Buy1Sell2

    Buy1Sell2

    Your postings have now reached Chicken Little Platinum Status.
     
    FriskyCat likes this.