Plaintiffs' claimed that the Administrator's October 31, 2017 Directive banning EPA grant recipients from serving on EPA advisory committees is arbitrary and capricious and violates uniform federal ethics requirements issued by the Office of Government Ethics, FACA, and EPA statutes defining membership requirements on EPA federal advisory committees
Directive: (1) is reviewable under the APA because FACA’s implementing regulations provide law to apply; (2) is not contrary to law merely because it differs from the OGE uniform federal ethics regulations; (3) is arbitrary and capricious because it did not provide a reasoned explanation for EPA’s change in policy; and (4) is a supplemental agency ethics regulation and therefore should have undergone the supplementation process outlined in the OGE regulations.