Latest news with #ORD
E&E News
a day ago
- Politics
- E&E News
‘Total chaos': EPA staffers slam research office fallout
The Trump administration's plans to eliminate EPA's stand-alone science office have left employees with more questions than answers. 'If this sounds like they're doing this on the fly, they're doing this on the fly,' said one agency employee. 'It's not organized. It's total chaos.' Among other lingering unknowns is which — and how many — Office of Research and Development staffers will receive layoff notices versus who will get reassigned to other offices, according to EPA employees granted anonymity to speak freely because they fear retaliation. Advertisement Some employees have received reassignments for internal positions they were encouraged to apply to in May, before they knew ORD's fate.
WIRED
2 days ago
- Business
- WIRED
EPA Employees Still in the Dark as Agency Dismantles Scientific Research Office
Jul 21, 2025 5:26 PM As the EPA moves to shut down the Office of Research and Development, leadership is unable to answer questions as basic as when it will close and how many will lose their jobs. Photograph: Tierney L. Cross/Getty Images Employees of the crucial scientific research arm of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have been left with more questions than answers as the agency moves to officially wind down the office following months of back-and-forth. On Friday evening, the EPA issued a press release announcing a reduction in force at the Office of Research and Development (ORD), citing the move as part of a larger effort to save a purported $748.8 million. On Monday, some employees at ORD, the largest office in the agency, began receiving emails detailing that they had been assigned new positions within the EPA. 'Please note, this is not an offer, but a notice of reassignment,' says a letter sent to an employee and viewed by WIRED states; the employee had previously applied to positions within the agency, as ORD employees were instructed to do in May. 'There is no action you need to take the reassignment, and there is no option to decline.' On a call with ORD administrators and staff held Monday afternoon, audio of which was obtained by WIRED, leadership—including ORD acting administrator Maureen Gwinn—was unable to answer basic questions from employees, including a timeline for when the agency planned to permanently end ORD, how many employees would be transferred to other offices, and how many would lose their jobs. Employees at ORD who spoke with WIRED say that Friday's public-facing email was the first concrete news they had heard about their organization's future. One worker told WIRED that employees often learned more from news outlets, including WIRED, 'than we do from our management.' "We wish we had more information for you," Gwinn told staff on the call. "I'll speak for myself, I wish we weren't at this point today." An EPA spokesperson, who declined to give their name, wrote in response to a series of questions from WIRED that the agency is currently offering its third voluntary resignation period, known as a DRP, which ends on July 25. 'The RIF process entails a number of specific procedures in accordance with OPM regulations,' they said. 'The next step in this process is to issue intent to RIF notices to individual employees.' That number 'won't be clear,' they said, until after the DRP process was over. 'This is not an elimination of science and research,' the spokesperson wrote. 'We are confident EPA has the resources needed to accomplish the agency's core mission of protecting human health and the environment, fulfill all statutory obligations, and make the best-informed decisions based on the gold standard of science.' At the start of the year, ORD was composed of between one and two thousand scientists at labs spread across the country as well as in Washington, DC. The branch's work provides much of the science that underpins the policy formed in the agency, from research on chemicals' impacts on human health and the environment to air quality and climate change to planning for emergencies and responding to contaminations in air, soil, and water. The office contains many groups and initiatives that are crucial to protecting the environment and human health, including a team that studies human health risks from chemicals. Several EPA scientists stressed to WIRED that ORD's current structure, which allows research to happen independent of the policy-making that occurs in other parts of the agency, is crucial to producing quality work. One told WIRED that they worked in a scientific role in an EPA policy office under the first Trump administration. There, they felt that their job was to 'try and mine the science to support a policy decision that had already been made.' The structure at ORD, they said, provides a layer of insulation between decision-makers and the scientific process. ORD was heavily singled out in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership document, the policy blueprint that has closely anticipated the Trump administration's moves in office. It described the branch as 'precautionary, bloated, unaccountable, closed, outcome-driven, hostile to public and legislative input, and inclined to pursue political rather than purely scientific goals.' The plan did not, however, propose doing away with the organization. But in March, documents presented to the White House by agency leadership proposed dissolving ORD, resulting in backlash from Democrats in Congress. In early May, the EPA announced it would be reorganizing its structure, which administrator Lee Zeldin wrote in a Newsweek op-ed would 'improve' the agency by 'integrating scientific staff directly into our program offices." The agency said that it would create a new Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions (OASES), which would sit under the Office of the Administrator. Putting much of ORD's scientific work in policy offices, the scientist who previously worked in a policy office told WIRED, means that 'we're going to end up seeing science that has been unduly interested by policy interests. I don't think that's going to result in policy decisions that are empirically supportable.' Following May's reorganization announcement, ORD employees were encouraged to apply for jobs within other parts of the agency. Multiple workers who spoke with WIRED say that the job postings for these new positions were barebones, with few descriptions of what the work would actually entail. One job posting seen by WIRED labels the posting simply as 'Interdisciplinary Scientific & Engineering Positions,' with no information about the topic area, team, or scientific expertise required. The EPA's reorganization efforts were temporarily stalled by lawsuits. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court paused a preliminary injunction blocking further mass reductions in force at 17 federal agencies, including the EPA. There was one bright spot on Monday's call: ORD leadership told employees that all of the ORD-affiliated labs would be kept open, a piece of news that ran contrary to some previous reports. Still, workers say that it's becoming increasingly difficult to do science at EPA. More than 325 ORD workers—around a fifth of ORD's ranks—had taken voluntary retirements since the start of the year, according to the EPA spokesperson. A scientist told WIRED that while they usually would have had a small team helping with their field work, they've been left to handle everything alone, including 'washing dishes and labeling bottles.' Cumbersome new financial approval processes, they said, have also resulted in chemicals that they ordered being delayed for months and expensive equipment sitting without any repairs. Since taking office, Zeldin has made it clear that he intends to relax environmental regulations, especially around business: Last week, he authored an op-ed in Fox News advertising how the agency would essentially erase the Clean Air Act permitting process for power plants and data centers in order to 'make America the AI capital of the world.' ORD scientists fear that the dissolution of their office will only make this pro-business mission easier. 'If you're going to end up rolling back air quality regulations—and we know, conclusively at this point, that ozone pollution is causing premature mortality and chronic effects—if you roll back the rules, you're going to see excess cases of death and illness,' one scientist tells WIRED. 'My guess is that [EPA leadership] don't want to know the answer to the question of how bad it is going to be.'
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
EPA shutters its scientific research arm, with hundreds expected to be impacted
The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday afternoon that it is eliminating its scientific division, known as the Office of Research and Development. The move to shutter the ORD comes one day after the agency said it was undergoing a reorganization involving several other EPA divisions. ORD conducts critical research to "safeguard human health and ecosystems from environmental pollutants," according to its website. More than 1,500 employees, including scientists and researchers, are dispersed across the country at 11 different locations, but the bulk are based at the EPA's headquarters in Washington, D.C., and at a large scientific facility in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Eliminating the office will bring $748.8 million in savings, according to a news release from the agency. The EPA had 16,155 employees back in January 2025, but following voluntary retirements, dismissals, and other reduction in force (RIF) actions, it is now down to 12,488 employees, the agency said in its release Friday, a reduction of about 22% of its staff. The staffing cuts include 3,201 employees who took the Trump administration's so-called "Fork in the Road" deferred resignation program, as well as those who took early retirement. "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," EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement Friday. "This reduction in force will ensure we can better fulfill that mission while being responsible stewards of your hard-earned tax dollars." It was anticipated that ORD would be impacted, according to earlier documents that outlined the agency's RIF plans. Back in March, the documents indicated that somewhere between 50% to 75% of ORD employees would not be retained, the majority of them leading scientists in their field of research. A source inside ORD told CBS News Friday that employees found out about the reduction in force via the press release that was sent out to the public, and has not received any formal communication from the agency about what will happen next. "A friend texted me the press release," the source told CBS News, "that is how I found out." According to the source, most employees are anxiously checking their email, waiting to see if they'll be reassigned to another program office, or impacted by the reduction. Some ORD employees have already received notification that they have been reassigned, while most wait to learn their fate. In May, ORD employees were told they would be contacted by other programs inside the agency to discuss potential, lateral moves. But according to the source, it now appears that impacted individuals won't get much of a choice: either take the reassignment if one is offered, or leave the agency. "I don't think I can stay in the U.S.," one source told CBS News, "there are no jobs here." Because of cuts to the federal workforce and cuts to scientific research, there are very few scientific positions available in the U.S., and some are now contemplating work abroad. "Today's cuts dismantle one of the world's most respected environmental health research organizations," said Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, former EPA principal deputy assistant administrator for science, in a statement. "EPA's science office has long been recognized internationally for advancing public health protections through rigorous science. Reducing its workforce under the guise of cost savings is both misleading and dangerous. This does not save taxpayers money; it simply shifts costs to hospitals, families and communities left to bear the health and economic consequences of increased pollution and weakened oversight. The people of this country are not well served by these actions. They are left more vulnerable." The ORD's research touches on a range of issues from PFAS, often referred to as "forever chemicals," to water-bourne diseases, soot in the air, and environmental factors that contribute to childhood asthma, Orme-Zavaleta said. It is made up of six major research program offices, per its website, that include Air, Climate, and Energy, Chemical Safety for Sustainability, Health and Environmental Risk Assessment, Homeland Security, Safe and Sustainable Water Resources and Sustainable and Healthy Communities. It also includes four major research labs including the Center for Computational Toxicology and Exposure (CCTE), the Center for Environmental Measurement and Modeling (CEMM), the Center for Environmental Solutions and Emergency Response (CESER) and the Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment (CPHEA). Wall Street Journal reports Trump sent "bawdy" birthday letter to Epstein, Trump threatens to sue Medical expert on Trump's chronic venous insufficiency diagnosis Americans on whether the U.S. should return to the moon, travel to Mars Solve the daily Crossword
Reuters
5 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
US EPA cutting workforce by 23%, closing research division
WASHINGTON, July 18 (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday it is cutting the size of its workforce by at least 23% through a combination of voluntary retirements and layoffs and is closing its Office of Research and Development. In January, the EPA had 16,155 employees, and after layoffs and employees opting to take financial incentives to leave or retire, it will have a workforce of 12,448, the agency said. The EPA is also offering a third round of the deferred resignation program that will close on July 25, meaning the agency's total workforce could further shrink, a spokesperson said. The EPA did not specify how many of those positions were affected by the elimination of its research office. The move is in line with President Donald Trump's promises to reduce the size of government when he took office in January. "The agency announced today its decision to restructure and eliminate the Office of Research and Development (ORD) to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of EPA operations and align core statutory requirements with its organizational structure," a spokesperson said in an email. EPA's ORD oversees a range of research projects, including health risk assessments of "forever chemicals" like PFAS, investigations into respiratory illness in the rural South, and studies on the spread of Valley fever, a fungal disease exacerbated by climate change and wildfires. EPA said it would create a new office focused on scientific research called the Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions.
E&E News
14-06-2025
- Business
- E&E News
EPA employees stream for the exit
More than 1,300 EPA employees are poised to leave the agency in what may be the single largest exodus in its history. As of Friday morning, 1,334 staffers had followed through on 'early out' offers that require them to start paid administrative leave Monday, according to figures provided by the agency. That number is about half of those who initially applied in April for early retirement as well as a second deferred resignation offer. Employees older than 40 have more time to mull their options. Those leaving make up more than 8 percent of EPA's current workforce of almost 15,700 employees, which includes about 550 who are already on leave following an earlier deferred resignation offer. The latest wave reportedly includes numerous mid-level and senior managers who will take decades of experience with them as they go out the door. Advertisement 'It's a tremendous loss for the agency and for ORD,' said Chris Frey, who served as assistant administrator of the Office of Research and Development during President Joe Biden's administration, adding that he's been 'gobsmacked' at the names of some of those who are exiting.
