EPA Will Not Appeal Ruling on Advisory Panel Membership

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that it will not appeal a recent decision by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) vacating the agency’s directive entitled “Strengthening and Improving Membership on EPA Federal Advisory Committees.” In a February 2020 opinion, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote of SDNY wrote that EPA needed to provide a “reasoned explanation” for its October 31, 2017 directive prohibiting EPA grant recipients from serving on its science advisory committees. According to the judge, the agency had “failed to articulate any reason for changing its longstanding practice of permitting EPA grant recipients to serve on EPA advisory committees.” Later in April, Judge Cote ruled against the order and said EPA “must simply return to the standards that it historically applied until those standards were altered by the Directive.” In a June 24, 2020 statement, EPA explained its decision to not challenge the decision: “The decision not to appeal the SDNY judgment was made in light of a related decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued in April. Based on that subsequent decision, EPA has determined that any blanket prohibition on the participation of EPA grant recipients as special government employees in EPA advisory committees should be promulgated as a supplemental ethics regulation with the concurrence of the Office o...
Source: Public Policy Reports - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: news