WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency plans to remove its scientific analysis workplace and will hearth greater than 1,000 scientists and different staff who assist present the scientific basis for guidelines safeguarding human well being and ecosystems from environmental pollution.
As many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and different scientists — 75% of the analysis program’s workers — may very well be laid off, in keeping with paperwork reviewed by Democratic workers on the Home Committee on Science, Area and Expertise.
The deliberate layoffs, forged by the Trump administration as a part of a broader push to shrink the scale of the federal authorities and make it extra environment friendly, had been assailed by critics as a large dismantling of the EPA’s longstanding mission to guard public well being and the surroundings.
The plans had been first reported by The New York Instances.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has mentioned he desires to eliminate 65% of the agency’s budget, an enormous spending minimize that might require main staffing reductions for jobs corresponding to monitoring air and water high quality, responding to pure disasters and lead abatement, amongst many different company features. The EPA has additionally issued steering directing that spending items greater than $50,000 require approval from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
The Workplace of Analysis and Improvement — EPA’s foremost science arm — at present has 1,540 positions, excluding particular authorities staff and public well being officers, in keeping with the memo. A majority of workers — starting from 50% to 75% — “won’t be retained,’’ the memo mentioned.
The analysis workplace has 10 amenities throughout the nation, stretching from Florida and North Carolina to Oregon.
The plan requires dissolving the analysis workplace and reassigning remaining workers to different elements of the company “to supply elevated oversight and align with administration priorities,” the memo says. EPA officers have offered the plan to the White Home for overview.
Molly Vaseliou, an EPA spokeswoman, mentioned the company “is taking thrilling steps as we enter the subsequent section of organizational enhancements,” however mentioned adjustments had not been finalized.
“We’re dedicated to enhancing our potential to ship clear air, water and land for all Individuals,” she mentioned, including, “Whereas no choices have been made but, we’re actively listening to staff in any respect ranges to collect concepts on how one can improve effectivity and make sure the EPA is as updated and efficient as ever.”
California Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the highest Democrat on the science committee, mentioned in a press release that the company’s analysis workplace was created by Congress and “eliminating it’s unlawful.”
Each resolution the EPA makes “have to be in furtherance of defending human well being and the surroundings, and that simply can’t occur if you happen to intestine EPA science,” Lofgren mentioned.
“EPA can not meet its authorized obligation to make use of the very best obtainable science with out (the Workplace of Analysis and Improvement) and that’s the purpose,’’ she added. President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser, Musk, “are placing their polluter buddies’ backside strains over the well being and security of Individuals,” Lofgren mentioned.
In his first time period, “Trump and his cronies politicized and distorted science,’’ she mentioned. “Now, that is their try to kill it for good.”
Ticora Jones, chief science officer on the environmental group Pure Sources Protection Council, mentioned Trump’s EPA “but once more is placing polluters over folks.”
She known as on Congress to “rise up and demand that EPA hold its scientists on the beat in order that all of us can get the clear air and clear water we’d like and deserve.”
Kyla Bennett, director of science coverage at Public Workers for Environmental Accountability, mentioned the analysis workplace’s work is meant to be uniquely shielded from politics. It gives important science, corresponding to threat assessments for chemical compounds that pose well being threats.
The workplace, for instance, did widespread testing that detailed excessive ranges of dangerous without end chemical compounds within the Cape Worry River in North Carolina, threatening consuming water, Bennett mentioned.
“It’s very clear this administration is extremely hostile to science,” she mentioned.
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Related Press author Michael Phillis contributed reporting from St. Louis.
