WHAT THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TAUGHT US ABOUT THE VULNERABILITIES OF EPA'S SCIENCE-BASED REGULATORY PROCESSES: CHANGING THE CONSENSUS PROCESSES OF SCIENCE INTO THE CONFRONTATIONAL PROCESSES OF LAW.

Under President Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was largely successful in at least temporarily achieving the administration's policy goals. It did so, in part, by significantly altering or distorting the processes used under prior Republican and Democratic EPA leadership to obtain consensus opinion of the scientific community on issues pertinent to EPA's science-based regulatory activities. In this article I explore the extent to which these changes reflect replacing the norms of science with norms more appropriate to the advocacy practices of law. Under the Biden Administration, we can anticipate restoration of the norms of science that previously guided the scientific consensus processes used by EPA. However, the lesson of the Trump administration is that these norms need buttressing by developing and strengthening laws that govern the selection of members of EPA's external scientific and technical advisory committees, their deliberative processes, and the literature reviewed by EPA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]