Trump Fills EPA Chemical Panel With Industry "Mouthpieces"
NEWS & RESEARCH
The Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals (SACC) is an expert panel within the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, that reviews the agency's scientific assessments of the health, safety, and environmental risks posed by toxic chemicals. The committee's role is to ensure that the best available science underpins the EPA's decisions about which substances to regulate. Although the SACC is meant to be composed of impartial scientists, the Trump administration has stacked the panel with individuals who stand to profit from deregulation of the chemical industry. When the EPA opened its list of candidates for public comment before finalizing the appointments, a coalition of public health groups warned that at least 13 had likely conflicts of interest involving the very chemicals that the committee is slated to review, as many of the individuals who were under consideration work either directly for chemical companies or for the consulting firms paid by them. The EPA appointed 11 of these new members anyway, meaning that industry-connected scientists now make up a majority of the 23-person committee. These conflicts have alarmed public health and environmental advocates, who warn that an industry-aligned committee will provide scientific cover for the administration's broader campaign to dismantle protections against toxic chemicals.
SOURCES: The Guardian | The Hill
ANALYSIS & OPINION
The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) has called the move "a blatant attack on scientific independence and integrity," claiming that it's "yet another way the Trump EPA is putting special interests over Americans' health and safety.’" At risk, the EDF says, are the "science-backed protections that keep us safe from chemicals that cause chronic diseases, cancers and fertility issues." The appointments may be illegal on multiple counts. Federal criminal law (18 U.S.C. § 208) bars government employees—including advisory members—from participating in matters where they hold a financial interest, and three more legal authorities specifically demand the SACC's independence—the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), which created the committee, the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which requires that advisory panels be balanced and free of special-interest influence, and the EPA's own internal guidelines, which state that members must have not have any conflicts of interest. Yet the appointees' conflicts are clear. Among the new members is Wade Barranco, who works for Lyondell Chemical Company, which in 2024 alone released nearly one million pounds of the very chemicals that the SACC is expected to review during Barranco’s term. Perhaps even more controversial is the appointment of Michael Dourson, a scientist who has spent his career leading firms that took money from the tobacco industry and dozens of chemical companies to produce research downplaying health risks. He has never explained why his firm's conclusions "almost universally differ" from those of groups that receive no industry money. His record is so contested that in 2017, during Trump’s first term, Trump was forced to withdraw his nomination to lead the EPA's chemical safety office after senators from both parties objected—with some alleging that Dourson ran a 'science for sale' operation.
SOURCES: The Hill | The Guardian | Environmental Defense Fund
HOW TO FIX IT
Federal action:
Give the current conflict-of-interest laws teeth so that there is more enforcement:
Reintroduce and pass the Federal Advisory Committee Transparency Act, which would amend FACA, the law that requires advisory panels like the SACC to be free of special-interest influence. The bill would require agencies to publicly disclose who sits on their committees and why each member was chosen—and, critically, to publish any ethics waiver excusing a member's conflict of interest, along with a description of the conflict and the reason the waiver was granted. Congress should also go one step further and spell out that committee appointments can be challenged in court, since judges have long treated FACA's requirements as too vague to enforce.
Amend the Toxic Substances Control Act, which created the SACC to give "independent advice" without ever defining independence, or prohibiting any specific relationships, or providing consequences for violations. Congress could add specifics, such as barring members from holding a financial interest in any chemical under review, imposing a five-year cooling-off period on anyone who has been employed by, consulted for, or received research funding from a regulated chemical company; requiring disclosure of all industry income; and making any review a conflicted member participates in legally voidable. Congress could also add the EPA's own guideline language—which requires reviewers to be independent and screened for 'ethics issues such as potential conflicts of interest'—into the statute, so that the standard can't be rewritten by a future administration.
Pass a bill that lets outsiders sue to enforce the conflict rules. 18 U.S.C. § 208 already bars advisory members from participating in matters where they hold a financial interest—but breaking that law is a crime only the Department of Justice can prosecute, and ordinary citizens have no right to sue over violations. Congress could fix this by giving those harmed by a conflicted member's participation—such as public health groups or state governments—the right to ask a court to remove that member.
Pass legislation that takes conflict decisions away from the agencies themselves. Right now, each agency's own officials decide whether their administration's nominees are too conflicted to serve—self-policing that predictably failed at the EPA.
Pass and expand the Scientific Integrity Act, which would require every federal agency that funds or conducts scientific research to adopt an enforceable scientific integrity policy—one that bars basing scientific conclusions on political considerations, prohibits suppressing or altering findings, and creates a channel for reporting violations. The current bill only covers the scientists inside agencies, not the advisory panels around them—so Congress should expand it to require that federal advisory committees meet the same independence standards.
Conduct investigations. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) can audit whether the EPA followed its vetting procedures. The EPA Inspector General (IG) can examine any ethics waivers—the written exemptions an agency can quietly grant to excuse a member's conflict of interest, which are not currently made public. And congressional oversight letters can demand copies of those waiver documents. If members do not have a waiver, they may be breaking federal law, since participating in reviews without an exemption violates the conflict-of-interest statute. While none of these avenues could undo the appointments, they could produce the findings and paper trails that build an official record for courts to draw on in the future.
State action:
In the face of potential deregulation by the federal government, states can regulate chemicals themselves. California's Proposition 65, for example, requires the state to maintain its own list of chemicals known to cause cancer or reproductive harm—currently around 800 substances—and requires businesses to warn consumers before exposing them to any of them, no matter what federal regulators say. States have also moved ahead of the EPA on PFAS—the "forever chemicals" found in countless consumer products, which never break down and are linked to cancer—with more than a dozen states setting their own drinking water limits or banning them from products sold in the state.
Litigation:
Public health groups, states, or passed-over scientists could sue under the Administrative Procedure Act, claiming the appointments were arbitrary and capricious given that the EPA violated its own conflict-of-interest guidelines and ignored the formal objections filed during the public comment period. Courts have proven willing to rule on committee membership. In Physicians for Social Responsibility v. Wheeler, for example, a federal appeals court struck down an attempt by Trump to purge academic scientists from the EPA’s advisory panels.
Any weakened chemical rule that the EPA issues based on the stacked committee's reviews can be challenged as well, since TSCA (15 U.S.C. § 2625(h)) requires that the agency's decisions to rest on the 'best available science'—a standard that conflicted peer review undermines.
Legislation: H.R.1930 - Federal Advisory Committee Transparency Act | H.R.1106 - Scientific Integrity Act | Proposition 65 - Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act (California)
