The Trump EPA is planning a sweeping removal of its scientists as part of a reorganization that will eliminate the agency’s existing science office, according to House Democrats.
The agency’s plans, reviewed by Democratic staff on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, entail eliminating a majority — between 50 percent and 75 percent — of the 1,540 positions in EPA’s Office of Research and Development.
The agency also plans to eliminate the office, which serves as its scientific research arm, as a national program office. Some of the science shop’s functions, positions and employee skills have “been identified as directly supporting statutory work in other EPA program offices,” the plan says.
The intent to slash EPA’s science staff is one portion of a broader layoff and reorganization plan from the agency, according to House Democrats. President Donald Trump directed every federal agency to submit proposals for workforce cuts and reorganizations earlier this month, with another round due in April.
EPA’s plan also suggests the agency will request an exception to a requirement to give employees 60 days’ notice about layoff plans. The agency is seeking to reduce the requirement to 30 days’ notice.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has said he envisions cutting at least 65 percent of his agency’s spending, which will likely coincide with significant workforce reductions.
The agency’s plans, shared with POLITICO’s E&E News, were first reported by The New York Times.
An EPA spokesperson said Tuesday that plans had not been finalized.
“EPA is taking exciting steps as we enter the next phase of organizational improvements. We are committed to enhancing our ability to deliver clean air, water, and land for all Americans,” the spokesperson said. “ While no decisions have been made yet, we are actively listening to employees at all levels to gather ideas on how to better fulfill agency statutory obligations, increase efficiency, and ensure the EPA is as up-to-date and effective as ever.”
Zeldin told Fox Business on Tuesday morning that The New York Times was “way ahead of their skis on this one,” but he did not directly address details about proposed cuts to the science office.
“A decision is something that we are working through. We will, across all offices of EPA, always look for ways to operate better, more efficiently,” Zeldin said.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the science committee, said eliminating the EPA science office would be illegal.
“Last time around, Trump and his cronies politicized and distorted science — they knew the value of ORD, and they sought to weaken it,” Lofgren said. “Now, this is their attempt to kill it for good. EPA cannot meet its legal obligation to use the best available science without ORD, and that’s the point.”
Former EPA officials also warn that gutting the science office would make it impossible for the agency to achieve its mission of protecting human health and the environment.
“Shuttering EPA’s science offices would take a chainsaw to the work of toxicologists, physicians, nurses and other experts across the country, particularly in places like North Carolina, Oklahoma, Ohio, and Georgia, where the agency operates major research labs,” said Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, the former principal deputy assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Research and Development.
“I don’t know how without scientists they will be able to implement the mission,” said Chitra Kumar, managing director of the Climate & Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a former EPA official.
“ORD did a lot of the science behind regulations. and without that science we would expect to see increased risk for everyday people,” Kumar said.
Cuts around the country
Shrinking or closing the office would affect a wide range of EPA programs and regulations, according to former agency staff. EPA scientists’ work includes researching water quality, the impacts of air pollution and health hazards posed by chemicals.
With 1,540 positions in the office, cutting 75 percent of its staff would mean terminating 1,155 employees. The office’s staff level excludes special government employees and public health officers, according to the EPA plans.
The Trump plan appears to be “part of an overall, larger, overall attack on the use of science to inform decisions about environmental regulation,” said Stan Meiburg, a former senior career official at EPA who served as acting deputy administrator during the Obama administration.
EPA scientists help inform the agency’s rules for air and water quality, Meiburg said.
“It was ORD scientists, for example, who were able to look at the status of pipes in Flint [Michigan] and determine how those pipes were being impaired by the absence of corrosion control,” Meiburg said.
Meiburg said the personnel cuts would mainly impact the ORD headquarters in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, as well as offices in Cincinnati and laboratories that are scattered around the country.
Losing the research shop would also hurt state environmental agencies, Meiburg said, which rely on EPA research to support their own permitting and monitoring activities for air and water.
The EPA science office represents approximately 10 percent of EPA’s staff and 5 percent of its total budget, said Chris Frey, who led the Office of Research and Development from 2022 to 2024. “In terms of cost savings, there’s not a lot of cost savings at the federal scale from eliminating ORD, but there’s a lot of disbenefit,” Frey said. “This is an example of penny-wise and pound-foolish.”
Project 2025’s case against the science office
EPA research and science was heavily criticized in Project 2025, a conservative policy blueprint organized by the Heritage Foundation.
That plan states that the Office of Research and Development is EPA’s “largest employer” and claims it has been tainted by political influence and is “hostile to public and legislative input.”
“A top priority should be the immediate and consistent rejection of all EPA ORD and science activities that have not been authorized by Congress,” Project 2025 says. “Several ORD offices and programs, many of which constitute unaccountable efforts to use scientific determinations to drive regulatory, enforcement, and legal decisions, should be eliminated.”
Cuts to the EPA science office could have long-term impacts, said Chet Wayland, a longtime EPA career official who recently retired as head of air quality monitoring.
“What ORD did for us is they worked on scientific issues and looked at health studies to determine what the new science was providing around health effects on air pollution,” said Wayland, who was based in the science office’s North Carolina headquarters.
“If there’s a loss now, you might not feel it immediately from a regulatory standpoint,” Wayland said. “But boy, down the road, you’re going to really feel it, because once science stops, it takes a long time for it to catch back up again.”
Timothy Cama contributed to this report.