EPA’s war on science

Scott Pruitt, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, claims to be concerned about bias on the agency’s advisory committees (“Pruitt names more industry insiders to EPA science boards,” Nov. 3). Pruitt’s own bias in favor of industry and deregulation makes him absolutely the wrong person to make that judgment.

Pruitt fought EPA regulations for years as Oklahoma’s attorney general. Since taking over the EPA, he has met almost daily with representatives of major industries, including well-known polluters.

Under Pruitt’s recent directive, scientists who have received funding from the EPA — and, therefore, have been vetted by the agency — are considered biased and unable to serve as EPA advisors. However, Pruitt is not at all concerned about bias among scientists funded by corporations.

It makes me wonder if Pruitt missed news reports about the tobacco industry funding research that concluded nicotine wasn’t addictive, and the sugar industry funding reports that fat, not sugar, is the main cause of America’s obesity problem. He is putting money and profits before logic and science.

— Tricia Crockett, Sudbury