"NEW YORK - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was sued on Monday by a nonprofit over a recent directive banning many scientists from panels that advise the agency on scientific matters.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler was also named as a defendant in the lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court by the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The NRDC said the Oct. 31, 2017 directive from Wheeler’s predecessor Scott Pruitt upended decades of EPA practices “for no good reason” and without required public comment.

It said the agency has since used the directive to remove qualified scientists from its roughly 23 advisory committees, freeing it to replace them with industry representatives."

Jonathan Stempel reports for Reuters June 3, 2019. [2]