WASHINGTON, DC, August 20, 2025 (ENS) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is firing and retiring thousands of workers as part of a “reduction in force” as the agency continues its “comprehensive restructuring efforts” by closing the EPA Office of Research and Development, commonly called ORD.
With this action, EPA claims the agency is delivering $748.8 million in savings to the government. But the American people are losing scientific services of all kinds that we now enjoy, scientists who have held these jobs warn. The ORD closure affects everything from clean water and clean air to the national emergency response, to a nuclear incident.
In a June opinion paper from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, former EPA and ORD scientists Scott Glaberman, H. Christopher Frey, and Tamara Tal warn that “dismantling ORD would not only jeopardize human and environmental health, but also weaken American science and global competitiveness.”
ORD has made “overlooked” decades of environmental progress, and the research office’s loss would critically impair the country’s ability to respond to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive threats, the scientists explain.
On April 14, Judge Loren AliKhan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order that pauses the EPA’s reorganization. It is being obeyed, but ORD staff are caught in the middle. The stakes, as detailed by Glaberman and his co-authors, are higher than is generally known.
“ORD serves as the scientific foundation of the EPA, linking research, innovation, and regulatory decision-making. It enables the agency to meet statutory mandates under laws like the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and Safe Drinking Water Act with sound, evidence-based policies,” the scientists write in defense of the office.
“Its research spans chemical detection, exposure modeling, risk assessment, and remediation – functions that cannot simply be outsourced to EPA program offices already overburdened by regulatory workloads.
ORD’s scientific expertise has supported the federal response to major crises such as the 9/11 World Trade Center collapse, Hurricane Katrina, the Flint water crisis, and the 2023 East Palestine, Ohio, train wreck. For each, ORD scientists provided real-time contaminant monitoring, exposure modeling, risk assessments, and technical guidance.
Eliminating ORD would severely degrade the nation’s ability to prepare for and respond to large-scale chemical or radiological events – an unacceptable vulnerability in an era of climate-driven disasters and growing global instability, the former EPA scientists write.
“It would cost more, deliver less, and leave the United States trailing other nations at a moment when global scientific leadership is shifting. The European Union, for example, recently committed €400 million to chemical safety – a clear signal that others are prepared to lead if the United States steps back,” write Glaberman and his colleagues.
Thousands of EPA Workers Already Gone
In January 2025, at the close of the Biden-Harris administration, EPA had 16,155 employees. The firings, combined with voluntary early retirements, separations, and other force reductions, will leave EPA with a workforce of 12,448, the agency says.
Earlier this year, EPA announced the termination of the Biden-Harris administration’s Environmental Justice and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion branches of the EPA. At that time, EPA fired 280 DEI and EJ employees and transferred 195 employees who perform “statutory obligations and mission essential” functions to other offices, further reducing the power of the agency by 475 staffers.
Now the agency says it is creating a new Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions, that “will allow EPA to prioritize research and science more than ever before and put it at the forefront of rulemakings and technical assistance to states.”
“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. “This reduction in force will ensure we can better fulfill that mission while being responsible stewards of your hard-earned tax dollars.”
Zeldin pointed to previous EPA promises of future scientific expertise and research efforts within program offices to tackle statutory obligations and mission essential functions.
“This included the addition of agency laboratory functions and hundreds of scientific, technical, bioinformatic, and information technology experts to EPA’s air, water, and chemical offices on top of the thousands of scientists and engineers employed by EPA within those program offices,” the EPA said in a statement.
Pushback is Building
Members of Congress are pushing back, claiming that EPA fired 139 of the terminated employees because they criticized the Trump administration.
Without the support of a single Republican, 104 Democrats in Congress sent a letter August 11 to EPA Administrator Zeldin asking that the Office of Research and Development be reinstated and that the fired employees be rehired and allowed to continue their research work.
“We write to express our concern regarding recent reports that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has investigated and placed at least 139 EPA employees on administrative leave because they signed a letter to you that criticizes the administration for undermining the EPA’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment,” the letter states in part.
“The letter was written to you and copied to the House committees responsible for EPA oversight, signed by EPA employees from every EPA regional office across the country, including headquarters, programmatic offices, and laboratories,” the Democrats wrote.
“In addition to the at least 139 who signed the letter and have now been placed on leave, hundreds signed anonymously due to fear of retaliation by the administration. We are deeply concerned that placing these employees on administrative leave was a violation of their First Amendment rights,” the Democratic Members of Congress wrote.
The Democrats warned in their letter to Administrator Zeldin, “The abrupt sidelining of these employees appears to be without consideration of the Agency’s workload and the impact their removal from the workplace will have on public health and our environment. EPA staff that has been put on administrative leave include inspectors, enforcement officers, attorneys, on-scene coordinators, permit reviewers, grant managers, and emergency response personnel. We are concerned about the negative impacts that removing these employees from their work has on the agency’s ability to protect public health and the environment nationwide. Investigating and sidelining these employees denies the American public the benefit of their vital work protecting human health.”
“We ask that the Administration cease this investigation and immediately reinstate the employees who signed this letter, without taking any adverse actions against them,” the Democratic Members of Congress wrote.
The Democrats who signed this letter were led by Congressman Sean Casten of Illinois, a scientist who expressed his position clearly in 2020, saying, “Climate change is the challenge of our generation, and it’s a scientific fact that if we don’t reduce our emissions, the consequences will be catastrophic.”
U.S. Congressman Sean Casten (IL-06), a biochemical engineer and clean energy CEO, commented on the April move by the Trump administration to halt the National Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated report on the impacts of climate change on the United States, saying, “The president can attempt to change the laws of the United States, but he cannot change the laws of physics.”
“Climate change is real. It is impacting our health, economy, and national security. It is fueling extreme wildfires, droughts, hurricanes, and flooding, bringing home insurance markets around the country to the brink of collapse. Pretending otherwise isn’t just foolish, it’s dangerous and puts American lives at risk,” Casten declared on May 2.
EPA Scientists Get Support From Their PEERS
Tim Whitehouse, executive director of the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, PEER, says the EPA decision to eliminate the Office of Research and Development “will devastate the country’s ability to protect human health and the environment and politicize scientific research at the agency.”
PEER is a service organization for environmental and public health professionals, land managers, scientists, enforcement officers and other civil servants dedicated to upholding environmental laws and values.
Based in Washington, DC, PEER “protects public employees who protect our environment,” working with current and former federal, state, local and tribal employees.
“ORD’s science, data, and research support all of EPA’s work, from protecting the public from harmful chemicals to setting air quality standards to keeping our drinking water safe. It conducts research in its in-house laboratories, funds extramural research at academic institutions and other organizations, and provides technical services in support of the agency’s mission,” Whitehouse said.
He applauded ORD scientists who he says are at the top of their fields, generating data and developing methodologies to study the impact of chemicals, wildfire smoke, air pollution, and global warming on human and environmental health.
“They also manage grant programs that fund these activities at universities and private companies, and they interpret research from other scientists and apply it to EPA problems,” Whitehouse explained. His interest is in safeguarding EPA employees.
Whitehouse says “no one should be fooled” by the EPA’s announcement that Office of Research and Development functions will be absorbed into EPA’s existing air, water and chemicals programs or folded into a new science office.
“The move to eliminate ORD is part of the Trump administration’s war on science,” Whitehouse believes. “EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is laying off and forcing out scientists in record numbers, and slashing research and travel budgets for the remaining EPA scientists,” he said.
With ORD eliminated, those scientists who remain will work in policy offices or under the administrator.
“One reason ORD has been a separate office since 1970 was to protect its scientific work from policy-oriented biases and political interference,” Whitehouse explained.
Cancer Research Affected
PEER warns that ORD’s ability to generate scientific information on cancer and non-cancer health effects of chronic exposure to environmental contaminants from its Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS will be compromised if the office is shuttered.
Local, state, and federal agencies use the information in the IRIS system, and it is relied on in EPA regulations under the Clean Air Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Clean Water Act.
But ORD and IRIS have long been targets for polluting industries.
“ORD’s work has led to stricter environmental protections and has at times contradicted industry-funded assessments,” Whitehouse said.
He cited The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 playbook, which calls the EPA’s Office of Research and Development “bloated, unaccountable, closed, outcome-driven, hostile to public and legislative input, and inclined to pursue political rather than purely scientific goals.”
“Lee Zeldin, with no Congressional approval, is destroying decades of investment in people, processes, learned experiences, and accomplishments that are the foundation for improving our understanding of how pollution affects the world we live in, and he is doing so as part of the Trump administration’s effort to turn the reins of government over to powerful polluting industries,” Whitehouse declared.
“That is a true form of waste, fraud, and abuse,” he concluded.
The union that represents EPA workers supports them too, of course. The American Federation of Government Employees, AFGE, Council 238 represents over 8,000 EPA employees nationwide.
Legislative and political director for AFGE Council 238, Nicole Cantello said, “EPA is hellbent on destroying the foremost environmental research organization in the world. That will only result in dirty air, dirty water and more health risks for the American people.”
But since January, more than 300 ORD staff have taken “deferred resignation” offers, including senior scientists. “It’s just an incredible loss of expertise,” Robert Kavlock, a retired EPA scientist who founded its center for computational toxicology told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in July. “It’s frustrating, and it’s maddening.”
Featured image: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, hosts last year’s annual Regional-ORD Community of Science Networking, or ROCS-Net, event at its Office of Research and Development, ORD, facility in Narragansett, Rhode Island. Participants stand by a green roof that helps manage stormwater runoff and a five-kilowatt photovoltaic solar array that helps offset the lab’s energy use. Participants explored collaborative research opportunities and discussed science priorities with EPA researchers. 2024, precise date not publicly available. (Photo courtesy EPA)
