EPA To Dissolve Office Of Science Advisor

September 29, 20185:51 PM ET

3:12

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is moving to dissolve its Office of the Science Adviser. That is the direct scientific adviser to acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. The EPA describes the move as an effort to streamline the agency, but critics call it another move by the Trump administration to diminish the role of science in decision making. Dan Boyce has the story.

DAN BOYCE, BYLINE: This past summer, Andrew Wheeler took over at the EPA after the resignation of embattled administrator Scott Pruitt. And Wheeler - he's familiar with the EPA. He started his career with the agency in the early '90s.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ANDREW WHEELER: I do understand firsthand the stress that goes along with a change in management or a change in a reorganization.

BOYCE: That's Wheeler addressing EPA employees back in July. After his first stint at the EPA, he worked as an adviser to Senator Jim Inhofe, one of the biggest climate change skeptics on Capitol Hill. Then Wheeler worked as a lobbyist where one of his major clients was a coal company. Still, he told the assembled EPA staff he brings a passion for helping the environment.

https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=653013054