Attorney General Xavier Becerra Joins Amicus Brief In Defense of EPA Research Integrity

SACRAMENTO — Joining a coalition of nine Attorneys General, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra today filed an amicus brief in support of plaintiffs in Physicians for Social Responsibility, et al., v.  E. Scott Pruitt. In this case, plaintiffs are challenging a directive by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that prohibits any scientist who receives EPA grant money from serving on any EPA advisory committee.

Advisory committees play an essential role in EPA decision-making, providing the EPA with high-level scientific guidance on both individual regulatory standards and on the EPA's overall direction. The directive threatens to undermine the integrity of the EPA and do serious harm to our health and environment. It is forcing many of the best environmental and public health scientists in the country to choose between obtaining valuable EPA funding for their research or serving on high-impact EPA advisory committees. The EPA wrongly contends that scientists who receive grant funding from the EPA have a conflict of interest and ignores that scientists who receive funding from industry often have a substantial personal and financial interest in the work of EPA advisory committees. As a direct result of the directive, the percentage of industry-backed scientists on these committees has dramatically increased.

“This illegal directive is yet another example of the Trump Administration asking the fox to guard the henhouse,” said Attorney General Becerra. “Administrator Scott Pruitt’s presumption that EPA-funded scientists already subject to conflict-of-interest rules are suspect, while industry-funded scientists are not, is nonsense. American families deserve an EPA that will protect our public health and our environment, not an EPA that will violate federal law to put polluters and profits first. We applaud the scientists bringing this case to court. In California, we believe in and proudly support science.”

In the amicus brief, the Attorneys General underscore:

• The EPA’s stated reason for this directive, conflict-of-interest concerns, is baseless and misdirected. Grant recipients do not have a financial interest in their committee work, because most advisory committees do not make choices about awarding individual research grants. In the rare circumstance where committee advice may affect a committee member’s funding, existing conflict-of-interest rules mandate that the scientist abstain from advising on that particular issue. 
• Having qualified and eminent academic scientists on EPA advisory committees is vital to ensuring that the EPA's actions and regulations are well-supported and defensible. Skewing those committees to represent industry interests and perspectives will deeply undermine the respect and deference afforded to those committees, both by the public and by courts who review challenges to EPA rules. State university systems will suffer as faculty members are forced to forego important professional opportunities. 
• Administrator Pruitt arbitrarily and illegally adopted the directive in spite of regulations issued by the Office of Governmental Ethics. These regulations require that any federal agency seeking to create conflict of interest rules obtain that office's approval before the rule can become effective.

While the EPA’s concerns are imagined, the negative impact of this directive on the integrity of EPA’s work will be real. EPA maintains a research budget of over $400 million. In the three years prior to the Directive, committee members received research grants in excess of $77 million. These committees oversee crucial EPA functions, like providing peer review to the Administrator and advising on clean-air standards. Industry-affiliated scientists on EPA advisory committees will understandably be reluctant to give advice against their employers’ financial interests, allowing corporate interests, not public health, to dictate EPA decision-making.

Attorney General Becerra joins the Attorneys General of Washington, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Oregon in filing today’s amicus brief. The Pennsylvania Department of Enviromental Protection also joined this amicus brief.

A copy of the amicus brief can be found here.