Science advisers celebrate US environment agency head’s exit

Scientists who advise the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are joining with environmental organisations in celebrating the resignation of Scott Pruitt, the agency’s embattled director.

‘Good riddance,’ says Joseph Rodricks, a toxicologist specialising in risk analysis who helped found the environmental and health consulting firm Ramboll Environ and sits on various EPA science panels. ‘Pruitt has taken so many actions which are destructive, it is hard to believe that they are science-based,’ Rodricks continues. ‘He was removing lots of regulations and programmes from earlier administrations – where does science feed into that?’