\n<\/p>\n
Several EPA scientists stressed to WIRED that ORD\u2019s 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 \u201ctry and mine the science to support a policy decision that had already been made.\u201d The structure at ORD, they said, provides a layer of insulation between decisionmakers and the scientific process.<\/p>\n
ORD was heavily singled out in Project 2025\u2019s Mandate for Leadership document, the policy blueprint that has closely anticipated the Trump administration\u2019s moves in office. It described the branch as \u201cprecautionary, bloated, unaccountable, closed, outcome-driven, hostile to public and legislative input, and inclined to pursue political rather than purely scientific goals.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
In early May, the EPA announced it would be reorganizing its structure, which administrator Lee Zeldin wrote in a Newsweek op-ed would \u201cimprove\u201d the agency by \u201cintegrating scientific staff directly into our program offices.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
Putting much of ORD\u2019s scientific work in policy offices, the scientist who previously worked in a policy office told WIRED, means that \u201cwe\u2019re going to end up seeing science that has been unduly influenced by policy interests. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s going to result in policy decisions that are empirically supportable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following May\u2019s reorganization announcement, ORD employees were encouraged to apply for jobs within other parts of the agency. Multiple workers who spoke with WIRED say the job postings for these new positions were bare-bones, with little description of what the work would actually entail. One job posting seen by WIRED labels the role simply as \u201cInterdisciplinary Scientific & Engineering Positions,\u201d with no information about the topic area, team, or scientific expertise required.<\/p>\n
The EPA\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
There was one bright spot on Monday\u2019s 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\u2019s becoming increasingly difficult to do science at the EPA. More than 325 ORD workers\u2014around a fifth of ORD\u2019s ranks\u2014had 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\u2019ve been left to handle everything alone, including \u201cwashing dishes and labeling bottles.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
Since taking office, Zeldin has made it clear that he intends to relax environmental regulations, especially those affecting 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 \u201cmake America the AI capital of the world.\u201d ORD scientists fear that the dissolution of their office will only make this pro-business mission easier.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re going to end up rolling back air quality regulations\u2014and we know, conclusively at this point, that ozone pollution is causing premature mortality and chronic effects\u2014if you roll back the rules, you\u2019re going to see excess cases of death and illness,\u201d one scientist tells WIRED. \u201cMy guess is that [EPA leadership] don\u2019t want to know the answer to the question of how bad it is going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Several EPA scientists stressed to WIRED that ORD\u2019s 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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[2239,2430,5105,3332,2699,1008,3141,2477],"class_list":{"0":"post-11654","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-agency","9":"tag-dark","10":"tag-dismantles","11":"tag-employees","12":"tag-epa","13":"tag-office","14":"tag-research","15":"tag-scientific"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}