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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will move forward with plans to gut the agency’s office that studies how air pollution, drinking water contamination and toxic chemicals, including glyphosate, affect human health, the agency announced Friday.
As part of its “reduction in force,” which reportedly will cut $748.8 million from the agency’s budget, the EPA is eliminating the Office of Research and Development (ORD).
ORD is strictly a scientific research organization. It has no regulatory responsibilities, which means it isn’t subject to industry influence in the same way as other sectors of the EPA.
As a result, ORD often reaches different conclusions than other EPA research groups, according to Bill Freese, science director at the Center for Food Safety.
The office’s findings underlie many of the policies and regulations issued by the agency. Its research is often used to justify stricter rules, prompting opposition from pesticide and chemical manufacturers and other industries — and even from other sections within the agency that are allegedly captured by the chemical industry.
For example, ORD identified glyphosate as a carcinogen when the EPA’s pesticide wing argued it was safe.
“Polluters across America are cheering on plans to eliminate the EPA’s independent ORD,” Freese said. He added:
“They want to silence ORD’s ground-breaking research that demonstrates how cumulative exposure to their toxic products — from phthalates to PFAS to pesticides — impairs reproduction and has other adverse effects on human health.
“We urge the Trump administration to reverse course and restore ORD, because without it, America will never become healthy again.”
Freese told The Defender in an earlier interview that ORD does precisely the type of work called for by “The MAHA Report.” The report, released in May by the Make America Healthy Again Commission, is the Trump administration’s assessment of factors driving the epidemic of chronic childhood disease.
Much of ORD’s research takes a different approach from current investigations. For example, one evaluation examined the adverse effects of cumulative exposure to multiple chemicals — a problem highlighted in the report — instead of the more common approach that separately evaluates each chemical.
EPA media coverage ‘biased,’ counters move will improve ‘effectiveness and efficiency’
The decision to shutter the office had been expected since March, when The New York Times reported on a leaked EPA document calling for the department’s closure. However, until Friday’s announcement by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, the administration maintained that no decision had been made.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, EPA has taken a close look at our operations to ensure the agency is better equipped than ever to deliver on our core mission of protecting human health and the environment while Powering the Great American Comeback,” Zeldin said in a press release. “This reduction in force will ensure we can better fulfill that mission while being responsible stewards of your hard-earned tax dollars.”
It is part of a move by the administration to cut the workforce from 16,155 in January 2025 to 12,448 employees, the press release said. However, some ORD employees are being reassigned, not laid off.
In a call with administrators and staff on Monday, no one was able to say when the agency planned to close ORD, how many employees would be transferred or how many would be laid off, Wired reported.
An EPA spokesperson responded to questions from The Defender about what would happen to the type of research done by ORD, saying, “Contrary to biased media reports, Friday’s announcement is not an elimination of science and research.”
The spokesperson said the decision to restructure and eliminate ORD was meant “to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of EPA operations and align core statutory requirements with its organizational structure.”
The spokesperson said agency laboratory functions and hundreds of scientific, technical, bioinformatic and information technology experts had been transferred to EPA’s air, water and chemical offices.
There are “thousands of scientists and engineers already employed by EPA within other program offices,” the spokesperson said.
“The agency is also creating a new Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions in the Office of the Administrator, which will allow EPA to prioritize research and science more than ever before and put it at the forefront of rulemaking and technical assistance to states,” the spokesperson said.
Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, former EPA principal deputy assistant administrator for science, said in a statement to CBS that the move would not save money, “it simply shifts costs to hospitals, families and communities left to bear the health and economic consequences of increased pollution and weakened oversight.”
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Zeldin has repeatedly voiced his support for the MAHA agenda. Yet, under his reign, the agency has rolled back some regulations that would protect people from environmental toxins and challenged others.
For example, the EPA announced in May that it was delaying the deadlines for a group of chemicals known as PFAS to meet new enforceable drinking water standards and was rolling back limits on four other related chemicals.
On Friday, the EPA appealed a ruling by a federal judge issued last year ordering the agency to set new rules for water fluoridation. The agency didn’t contest the findings that current water fluoridation poses a risk to pregnant women and children. Instead, it challenged the judge’s decision to consider new evidence during the case, and the plaintiffs’ legal right to sue.
The chemical industry appears to support EPA’s decision to cut the office.
In a statement to The New York Times, Chris Jahn, president of the American Chemistry Council, the top lobbying organization for the chemical industry, said his group “supports E.P.A. evaluating its resources to ensure American taxpayer dollars are being used efficiently and effectively.”
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