The smaller, seven-member group, known as the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, or C.A.S.A.C., is legally obligated to provide advice to the administrator about those air quality standards. But the work of its sub-panels, such as the one on particulate matter, is not required by law.
Those panels are typically made up of researchers, doctors and others with specific expertise in the individual pollutants. Their reviews can take as long as 18 months, Dr. Goldman said.
At the same time, the C.A.S.A.C. also is going through a shake-up. Andrew Wheeler, the acting administrator of the E.P.A., announced Wednesday he was installing new members to that panel. They include a biochemist from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality; an air pollution control engineer with the Jefferson County, Ala., Department of Health; a toxicologist with the Utah Department of Environmental Quality; and a pulmonary doctor and professor emeritus from the University of Rochester Medical Center.
Lianne Sheppard, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Washington who until Wednesday served as a member of the C.A.S.A.C. and also is on the particulate-matter review board, expressed concern that the resulting panel may be too small and inexperienced in some of the specific issues to handle the new volume of work.
“They’re being asked to implement a new process, which will significantly increase their workload,” Dr. Sheppard said. “All of this will result in poorer-quality scientific oversight.”
Thomas Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, a think tank that supports fossil fuels, dismissed concerns about the changes. “Apparently it seems the enviros still don’t understand that elections have consequences,” he said.
Last year Scott Pruitt, Mr. Wheeler’s predecessor, barred advisory committee members from also receiving E.P.A. grants, a change he said was designed to limit conflicts of interest. It also had the effect of making it harder for academic researchers to participate on agency boards. With Mr. Wheeler’s additions to the panel, the C.A.S.A.C. board now has only one researcher.
