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The Trump administration has stacked a top chemical safety board with industry-aligned scientists who have a range of financial conflicts of interest and stand to profit from deregulation, public health advocates say.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s science advisory committee on chemicals (SACC) is slated to review research for dozens of toxic chemicals during the new members’ terms. At least ۱۳ proposed Trump appointees are probably conflicted on the chemicals that will be reviewed, comments filed with the EPA by a coalition of public health advocacy groups alleges.
Their appointment, critics warn, is designed to provide scientific justification for the EPA’s broader campaign to dismantle the nation’s protections against toxic chemicals.
Among the appointees are Wade Barranco, employed by Lyondell Chemical Company, which in ۲۰۲۴ released nearly ۱m pounds of chemicals likely to be reviewed by the SACC during his term, including acetaldehyde, benzene, ethylbenzene, naphthalene and styrene.
The public health groups say the appointees’ participation on reviews in which there is a conflict could be illegal. They pointed to federal law and the EPA’s internal guidelines that state that the SACC must be “both balanced and free of members who have actual or perceived conflicts of interest or an appearance of a loss of impartiality”.
Erik D Olson, senior strategic director for health for the Natural Resources Defense Council non-profit, which is among those leading the investigation into the appointees, said it was “clear why they were put on the committee”.
“They are mouthpieces for the chemical industry, or consulting firms bought and paid for by the chemical companies,” Olson said.
The SACC comprises ۲۰-۲۳ experts appointed every three years by the EPA administrator. It peer-reviews EPA science and scrutinizes the chemical risk analyses that underpin the agency’s decisions to regulate substances, with the aim of ensuring that the best available science is used.
The SACC typically includes experts from across the scientific community, including those affiliated with chemical makers, but the new board will be heavily tilted toward industry.
The industry-aligned SACC will probably ensure that scientific research that supports industry positions are used, and the board “will just rubber-stamp everything”, said Kyla Bennett, a former EPA scientist now with the Public Employees for Responsibility non-profit.
“It will give them cover for bad science,” Bennett added.
For its report, the public health coalition reviewed the EPA chemical data reporting database and toxics release inventory, which track the manufacture and release of toxic chemicals. It identified which companies were making or releasing the chemicals that the SACC will review.
It then scrutinized publicly available backgrounds of the proposed SACC appointees, and linked them to the companies that have reported making, using or releasing the chemicals. In other words, the analysis concretely shows which SACC appointees and their employers probably stand to profit from the SACC decisions.
“We believe the information we provide in these comments is sufficient to find that actual or potential conflicts of interest or an appearance of a loss of impartiality,” the coalition report states.
Another nominee is Michael Dourson, an industry-aligned scientist who in ۲۰۲۴ led an elaborate operation to attempt to undo the Biden EPA Pfas water limits. He once worked for the EPA but left the agency to set up what his critics characterize as a “one-stop shop” for industry-friendly research, Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment (Tera).
In ۲۰۱۷, Trump nominated Dourson to oversee the EPA’s chemical safety division, but he was forced to withdraw his name after failing to get enough Republican support, in part because his Senate critics alleged he ran a “science for sale” operation that allowed industry’s American Chemistry Council to edit papers. Dourson has said he withdrew his name because of procedural reasons.
Dourson did not answer questions sent by the Guardian, but sent a link to Tera’s funding page. He has previously said Tera is “impartial” and receives money from NGOs and regulatory agencies. He has called it a “science-neutral group that exists to help all parties out”.
However, Dourson has never responded to questions about why Tera’s conclusions almost universally differ from groups that do not receive any industry money, and often align with chemical makers’ positions.
The new report states that Dourson has been paid by chemical makers or industry groups to work on chemicals that SACC will probably soon review, including tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), acrylonitrile, styrene and naphthalene.
His work on TBBPA, funded by the American Chemistry Council’s North American Flame Retardant Alliance, contradicted “the best available science” on reproductive toxicity and harms to developing children, the report claims.
Dourson’s appointment is a “blatant attack on the scientific independence and integrity” of the SACC, said Sarah Vogel, director of healthy communities for the Environmental Defense Fund.
“The appointment of Michael Dourson, who has spent his career at the helm of firms that have taken money from the tobacco industry and dozens of chemical companies to undermine public health protections, is the definition of a conflict of interest,” Vogel added.
Meanwhile, the board is chaired by Robinan Gentry, a consultant from Ramboll, an industry-aligned group that regularly attacks chemical regulations.
The EPA said in a statement that some of the issues the public health groups claim are conflicts could be viewed as “general scientific expertise gained through prior employment, grants, or consulting”.
“The mere fact that a scientist has previously worked in industry, academia, or for a nonprofit organization is not, under federal law, a conflict of interest, and does not disqualify them from serving as Special Government Employees,” the agency said in a statement.
Olson disagreed.
“The fox is not guarding the hen house – the fox owns the hen house, and is able to control any theoretical oversight of EPA science,” Olson said. “When you have chemical industry people running the EPA’s toxics office, and theoretically independent reviewers have these conflicts, it’s pretty clear there won’t be independent voices.”
