Young v. EPA

The federal district court for the District of Columbia entered partial final judgment in a lawsuit challenging EPA’s reconstitution of advisory committees during the Biden administration. The court directed entry of final judgment in favor of the defendants on the claims related to the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), having previously concluded that the reconstitution of the CASAC did not violate the Federal Advisory Committee Act or the Administrative Procedure Act. The court stayed proceedings with respect to the remaining claims, which concerned the Science Advisory Board, pending the resolution of the plaintiffs’ appeal.

The federal district court for the District of Columbia found that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) did not violate the Federal Advisory Committee Act or the Administrative Procedure Act when it reconstituted the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) in 2021. The plaintiffs alleged, “essentially, that the EPA has unlawfully purged [the CASAC and the Science Advisory Board] to allow the Biden administration to pursue policies on climate change the committees’ previous membership had thwarted.” The court concluded that the Clean Air Act did not require an industry representative on the CASAC, given its technical and scientific mandate. The court also found that there were safeguards in place that were sufficient to avoid inappropriate influence. In addition, the court rejected the plaintiffs’ contention that the reconstitution of the CASAC was arbitrary and capricious

On October 28, 2021, an amended complaint was filed, adding the former chair of the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee as a plaintiff.

In a motion for preliminary injunction filed on October 21, the plaintiff contended that EPA “has moved to sideline anyone who might dissent from the President’s climate-change agenda,” and that immediate relief was necessary to pause the Committee’s work before it was asked to “rubberstamp” EPA staff’s policy assessment regarding stricter standards for particulate matter.

On October 7, 2021, a statistician and former member of EPA’s Science Advisory Board filed a lawsuit against EPA in the federal district court for the District of Columbia alleging that EPA violated the Administrative Procedure Act, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, and federal regulations when EPA reconstituted the Science Advisory Board and the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee in 2021. The complaint alleged that EPA Administrator Michael Regan “abruptly fired” all members of the Board and Committee in March 2021 and “rapidly proceeded to pack the new committees with academics receiving multi-million dollar research grants from EPA,” with none of the new members affiliated with regulated industries. The plaintiff sought injunctive relief requiring that the Board and Committee be reconstituted “with fairly balanced membership and adequate protections against inappropriate influence.”