The Environmental Protection Agency has added officials from a noted offshore drilling company and the prominent Environmental Defense Fund to its chemical safety advisory committee.
The additions are required under the updated Toxic Substances Control Act law that requires more diverse membership on the agency’s Science Advisory Committee.
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt announced the 11 new committee members Thursday to supplement the 18 people appointed in January 2017 — including a former Toys R Us executive.
Under the chemical safety law, the committee “is required to include representatives from multiple sectors, including: science, government, labor, public health, public interest, animal protection, and industry.”
Houston offshore drilling company Noble Energy is one of the standouts in the list of new members. The company has become well-known for the discovery of the giant Tamar natural gas field in the eastern Mediterranean off the shore of Israel.
Israeli officials have been in the U.S. recently talking up their plans for developing the field and creating new inroads for exports to Europe and Egypt.
Those plans could dovetail nicely with Trump’s energy dominance agenda, which plays up energy exports from the U.S.
The company announced this week that it sold off a 7.5 percent stake in the Tamar field, retaining a 25 percent stake in the giant energy find.
It doesn’t hurt that Sidney Marlborough, who will be joining the committee, is a senior environmental toxicologist with Noble Energy. He is responsible for the company’s chemical stewardship program, which EPA says is “responsible for the risk evaluation of new products for oil and gas exploration and production.”
Marlborough will be joining the likes of Alan Kaufman, a vice president at the Toy Industry Association. Kaufman was part of the group selected by the EPA in January 2017.
Kaufman had been vice president for regulatory affairs and product safety at Toys R Us Inc., which recently announced it will be closing its national chain of giant toy stores.
The EPA is also adding a top environmental activist group, the Environmental Defense Fund, to the committee.
It is the first environmental group to be included on the chemical committee under Pruitt’s watch. Jennifer McPartland, who will be joining the committee, is a senior scientist at the group who supports the environmental organization’s efforts to ensure the implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Pruitt also added Michael Wilson from the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of large labor unions and environmental groups.
Pruitt said he hopes that “broader representation” on the key chemical advisory committee “will work to advance the agency’s efforts to get the most modern and safe chemicals to market quickly in order to provide regulatory certainty for manufacturers and confidence for American consumers.”
