EPA plans to cut scientific research program, could fire more than 1,000 employees

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency plans to eliminate its scientific research office and could fire more than 1,000 scientists and other employees who help provide the scientific foundation for rules safeguarding human health and ecosystems from environmental pollutants.

As many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists — 75% of the research program’s staff — could be laid off, according to documents reviewed by Democratic staff on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

The planned layoffs, cast by the Trump administration as part of a broader push to shrink the size of the federal government and make it more efficient, were assailed by critics as a massive dismantling of the EPA’s longstanding mission to protect public health and the environment.

The plans were first reported by The New York Times.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has said he wants to eliminate 65% of the agency’s budget, a huge spending cut that would require major staffing reductions for jobs such as monitoring air and water quality, responding to natural disasters and lead abatement, among many other agency functions. The EPA has also issued guidance directing that spending items greater than $50,000 require approval from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Not PARSE.LY: Zoe Lofgren

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The Office of Research and Development — EPA’s main science arm — currently has 1,540 positions, excluding special government employees and public health officers, according to the memo. A majority of staff — ranging from 50% to 75% — “will not be retained,’' the memo said.

The research office has 10 facilities across the country, stretching from Florida and North Carolina to Oregon.

The plan calls for dissolving the research office and reassigning remaining staff to other parts of the agency “to provide increased oversight and align with administration priorities,” the memo says. EPA officials have presented the plan to the White House for review.

Molly Vaseliou, an EPA spokeswoman, said the agency “is taking exciting steps as we enter the next phase of organizational improvements,” but said changes had not been finalized.

“We are committed to enhancing our ability to deliver clean air, water and land for all Americans,” she said, adding, “While no decisions have been made yet, we are actively listening to employees at all levels to gather ideas on how to increase efficiency and ensure the EPA is as up to date and effective as ever.”

California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the top Democrat on the science committee, said in a statement that the agency’s research office was created by Congress and “eliminating it is illegal.”

Every decision the EPA makes “must be in furtherance of protecting human health and the environment, and that just can’t happen if you gut EPA science,” Lofgren said.

“EPA cannot meet its legal obligation to use the best available science without (the Office of Research and Development) and that’s the point,’' she added. President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser, Musk, “are putting their polluter buddies’ bottom lines over the health and safety of Americans,” Lofgren said.

In his first term, “Trump and his cronies politicized and distorted science,’' she said. “Now, this is their attempt to kill it for good.”

Ticora Jones, chief science officer at the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council, said Trump’s EPA “yet again is putting polluters over people.”

She called on Congress to “stand up and demand that EPA keep its scientists on the beat so that we all can get the clean air and clean water we need and deserve.”

Kyla Bennett, director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said the research office’s work is supposed to be uniquely protected from politics. It provides essential science, such as risk assessments for chemicals that pose health threats.

The office, for example, did widespread testing that detailed high levels of harmful forever chemicals in the Cape Fear River in North Carolina, threatening drinking water, Bennett said.

“It’s very clear this administration is incredibly hostile to science,” she said.

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Associated Press writer Michael Phillis contributed reporting from St. Louis.