In the modern administrative state, agencies increasingly rely on scientific advisory committees as a cost-effective way to bring outside scientific expertise to bear on agency decision making.  However, the success and legitimacy of these committees requires that they remain politically neutral as well as financially disinterested in the outcomes of agency rule making.  This Note explores the question of how selection procedures may be used to maintain the integrity of scientific advisory committees by analyzing selection procedures for the Science Advisory Board (SAB) of the Environmental Protection Agency.

This Note finds that current SAB selection procedures are inadequate to protect the neutrality of the SAB, and advocates that the SAB require fuller disclosure of information from its prospective panel members, that the SAB expressly use this information to balance panels not only for scientific expertise but also for institutionally driven viewpoints, and that the SAB implement more objective and transparent selection criteria.