The new rules would effectively shut out many academic scientists who rely on federal funding, replacing them with researchers from industry.
WASHINGTON — Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, stripped a half-dozen scientists and academics of advisory positions Tuesday and issued new rules barring anyone who receives E. P. A. grant money from serving on panels that counsel the agency on scientific decisions.
The move will effectively bar a large number of academic researchers, many of them experts in fields ranging from toxicology to epidemiology, from advising the E. P. A. on scientific matters, since the agency is one of the largest funders of environmental research.
Mr. Pruitt was expected to appoint several industry representatives to the panels. He did not impose any new restrictions to prevent them from offering advice on environmental regulations that may affect their businesses.
In an announcement at agency headquarters surrounded by conservative activists and Republican lawmakers who have long called for an overhaul of the advisory boards, Mr. Pruitt said he made the decision to ensure the agency would receive data and advice free from conflicts of interest or any appearance of a conflict. He said that people currently serving on E. P. A. advisory boards had received $77 million in grant money over the past three years as they were issuing advice on policy.
“Our focus should be sound science, not political science,” Mr. Pruitt said. “We want to ensure independence.”
Democrats, scientists and environmental groups denounced the decision. They said E. P. A. advisory boards already had stringent conflict of interest policies, and they asserted that neither Mr. Pruitt nor Republican critics of the panels had found any cases in which academic advisers profited from the agency by providing advice.
“The really galling part of this is that it’s all in an effort to avoid conflict of interest, but they pretend that the industry people who are being offered up positions on the panel are somehow unbiased because they’re not getting money from E. P. A.,” said Donna Kenski, director of data analysis at the Lake Michigan Air Directors Consortium in Illinois. Ms. Kenski, who was dismissed from the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee on Tuesday, said her organization received money from E. P. A. indirectly through the State of Illinois.
“I don’t believe it’s really about the funding,” Ms. Kenski said. “I believe it’s a blatant attempt to politicize a process that has been refreshingly free of politics.”
Mr. Pruitt is expected to ask about two dozen people to replace advisers whose terms have ended or were removed under the new rules, according to a list provided by several people close to the process. Among the expected appointees, several are state regulators and private consultants; one is a senior director at the American Chemistry Council, a trade association; another is the chief environmental officer for Southern Company, an electric utility; and one is the vice president of technology for Phillips 66 Research Center in Oklahoma, and previously worked for ConocoPhillips.
The E. P. A. did not confirm the full list of new appointees, but did announce that Michael E. Honeycutt, the top toxicologist at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, would chair the E. P. A.’s Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Honeycutt has sparred with the E. P. A. over ozone standards, and was a co-author of a study in an air and waste management magazine arguing that the agency has inflated the health benefits of more stringent air quality standards.
