"Former EPA science experts and nonprofit groups today came one step closer to striking down a policy limiting membership on the agency's advisory committees.

A panel of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit unanimously decided that a 2017 directive from former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt blocking recipients of agency funding from sitting on its Science Advisory Board and other powerful panels is reviewable and sent the dispute back to a lower bench.

"Even the Directive itself agrees that 'it is in the public interest to select the most qualified, knowledgeable, and experienced candidates,'" Judge David Tatel wrote in an opinion issued this morning."

Pamela King reports for Greenwire April 21, 2020. [2]