Trump Packed a Chemical Safety Board With Scientists Paid by the Chemical Industry

The Board That's Supposed to Protect You From Poison

Here's how this is supposed to work. The EPA's Science Advisory Committee on Chemicals, known as the SACC, is a panel of 20 to 23 experts appointed every three years by the EPA administrator. Their job is to peer-review the agency's science and scrutinize the chemical risk analyses that determine whether the government actually regulates dangerous substances. The whole point is independent oversight. The best available science, applied without favor.

The SACC is slated to review research on dozens of toxic chemicals during the new members' terms. These are real chemicals that real people are exposed to. Benzene. Naphthalene. Styrene. Acrylonitrile. Substances with documented links to cancer, developmental harm, and a host of other conditions that tend to show up in communities located near the facilities that produce them.

When the board works as designed, it keeps the EPA honest. It ensures that industry pressure doesn't quietly corrupt the science that underpins public health decisions. Which is exactly why stacking it matters so much. And which is exactly, according to The Guardian's reporting, what the Trump administration has done.

Who They Actually Appointed

Take Wade Barranco. He is employed by Lyondell Chemical Company, which in 2024 released nearly one million pounds of chemicals that the SACC is likely to review during his term, including acetaldehyde, benzene, ethylbenzene, naphthalene, and styrene. That's not a potential conflict of interest. That is a direct financial stake in the outcome of reviews Barranco will be sitting on.

Then there's Michael Dourson, who has his own greatest hits record at this point. In 2017, Trump tried to nominate him to run the EPA's entire chemical safety division and had to pull the nomination after he couldn't get enough Republican votes. Senate critics at the time alleged he ran a "science for sale" operation that let the American Chemistry Council edit his papers. Dourson disputes the characterization and has called his firm, Toxicology Excellence for Risk Assessment, a "science-neutral group that exists to help all parties out." He has never, however, explained why the firm's conclusions almost universally align with chemical industry positions rather than the findings of researchers who don't take industry money.

The coalition report, cited by The Guardian, says Dourson has been paid by chemical makers and industry groups to work on several chemicals the SACC will soon review, including styrene, naphthalene, acrylonitrile, and tetrabromobisphenol A. His work on that last one, a flame retardant, was funded by the American Chemistry Council's North American Flame Retardant Alliance and contradicted the scientific consensus on harm to children's development. The board he's now joining will review that same chemical.

The whole operation is chaired by Robinan Gentry, a consultant from Ramboll, a firm that The Guardian describes as regularly attacking chemical regulations on behalf of industry clients. So the chair, a key appointee, and at least a dozen others all have ties to the industries the board exists to check. Sleep tight.

This May Actually Be Illegal

The public health coalition filing comments with the EPA isn't just raising ethical objections. They are pointing to specific federal law and the EPA's own internal guidelines, which state that the SACC must be "both balanced and free of members who have actual or perceived conflicts of interest or an appearance of a loss of impartiality." The coalition argues that the appointees' participation in reviews where they have financial conflicts could violate those requirements.

Erik Olson, senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which helped lead the investigation into the appointees, put it bluntly to The Guardian. "They are mouthpieces for the chemical industry, or consulting firms bought and paid for by the chemical companies," he said. Kyla Bennett, a former EPA scientist now with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility nonprofit, was similarly unsparing. "It will give them cover for bad science," she said, predicting the board will "just rubber-stamp everything."

The EPA's Response Is Exactly What You'd Expect

The EPA, when asked about all of this, responded that some of what the public health groups are calling conflicts of interest could be viewed instead as "general scientific expertise gained through prior employment, grants, or consulting." That's the whole ballgame right there. Industry payments aren't conflicts. They're expertise. The guy whose company dumped a million pounds of chemicals into the air isn't compromised. He's experienced.

This framing is doing a lot of work. Under it, anyone who has spent their career being paid by chemical companies to produce research favorable to chemical companies is actually a highly credentialed expert in chemicals, not a hired gun with a documented track record of conclusions that just happen to benefit the people signing the checks. It's a great deal if you can get it.

The Bigger Picture Here Is Worse

This board doesn't operate in a vacuum. The Guardian reports that the SACC's new composition is part of the Trump EPA's broader campaign to roll back the country's protections against toxic chemicals. The science this board produces, or validates, or quietly buries, feeds directly into regulatory decisions that determine what levels of exposure the government considers acceptable.

Sarah Vogel, director of healthy communities for the Environmental Defense Fund, called Dourson's appointment a "blatant attack on the scientific independence and integrity" of the SACC. That's a careful, credentialed person using the sharpest language she has. "The appointment of Michael Dourson, who has spent his career at the helm of firms that have taken money from the tobacco industry and dozens of chemical companies to undermine public health protections, is the definition of a conflict of interest," Vogel said.

The coalition did serious homework here. They cross-referenced the EPA's own chemical data reporting database and toxics release inventory to identify which companies make or release the chemicals the SACC will review. Then they mapped those companies to the proposed appointees. This isn't speculation. It's documented, company by company, chemical by chemical. If the EPA ignores these findings, it won't be because no one showed them the receipts.