Latest news with #OfficeOfResearchAndDevelopment
WIRED
4 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.'
CBS News
7 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
EPA shutters its scientific research arm, with hundreds of scientists 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).
E&E News
7 days ago
- Business
- E&E News
EPA announces layoffs
EPA plans to lay off employees and eliminate its stand-alone science branch, confirming the office's demise that employees have anticipated for months. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced Friday afternoon the agency is conducting a reduction in force, or RIF, affecting those in the Office of Research and Development. 'This reduction in force will ensure we can better fulfill that mission while being responsible stewards of your hard-earned tax dollars,' Zeldin said in a statement. Advertisement The agency did not provide figures for how many employees will receive a RIF notice in its announcement but did say that with 'organizational improvements,' EPA will save $748.8 million. Combined with other 'early out' options for employees, EPA's workforce will total 12,448 employees. That is down from 16,155 personnel in January. The research office housed roughly 1,500 employees toward the end of the Biden administration. Hundreds of employees are leaving the agency already. EPA has received 3,201 applications for the 'deferred resignation' program and early retirement. EPA earlier this year sent RIF notices to 280 environmental justice employees as part of the Trump administration's crackdown on 'woke' diversity initiatives. Contacted for this story, EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou said, 'The agency announced today its decision to restructure and eliminate' the research office to improve efficiency of operations and align statutory requirements. 'The next step in this process is to issue intent-to-RIF notices to individual employees,' Vaseliou said. Key ORD functions will be absorbed into EPA's existing air, water and chemicals programs or new science office directly underneath the administrator, according to Friday's announcement. ORD staffers have been bracing for layoffs since March, after draft reorganization plans indicating a majority of staffers would be fired or reassigned were leaked to the press. After EPA unveiled its first phase of reorganization, ORD employees were encouraged to apply for lateral reassignment positions available under other program offices. Senior-level officials earlier this week urged managers to make decisions, according to an internal email reviewed by POLITICO's E&E News. It's not clear how many employees will be reassigned to these positions. EPA earlier this week opened another period offering employees to take offers through the deferred resignation program — marking the third round since President Donald Trump took office in January. The research office 'is the heart and brain of the EPA, without it we don't have the means to assess impacts upon human health and the environment,' said Justin Chen, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, EPA's largest union. Chen added, 'Its destruction will devastate public health in our country.' Contact reporters Ellie Borst on Signal at eborst.64 and Kevin Bogardus on Signal at KevinBogardus.89.
