ABOVE: © ISTOCK.COM, BET_NOIRE
In an executive order signed last Friday (September 27), President Donald Trump’s administration announced the continuation of 30 federal advisory panels while dropping two: the Marine Protected Areas Federal Advisory Committee and the Invasive Species Advisory Committee. The move comes after a June executive order that mandated one-third of all advisory panels be cut by September 30, capping the total number of panels at 350, reports Bloomberg Government.
The administration says that advisory committees cost taxpayers nearly $400 million per year, and that some committees are out of date or redundant, reports Bloomberg. However, critics argue that the disbanding of these boards is an effort to silence those who don’t agree with the current government’s policies. “This is part of a much more insidious pattern of this administration sidelining science,” Genna Reed, lead science and policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists Center for Science ...
