EPA employees are still in darkness as agencies demolish the Office of Science Research
Several EPA scientists stressed that connecting the current structure of this ORD allows research to be independent of decisions taking place elsewhere in the agency, which is crucial to generate quality work. One told Wired that they played a scientific role in the EPA policy office under the first Trump administration. There, they see their work as “trying to mine science to support policy decisions that have been made.” The structure of ORD provides an insulation layer between decision makers and scientific processes, they say.
ORD has been widely picked out in the 2025 project leadership document mandate, and this policy blueprint has closely anticipated the Trump administration’s actions in office. It calls the branch “preventive, swelling, irresponsible, closed, results-oriented, hostile to the public and legislation and tends to pursue political rather than purely scientific goals.” However, the plan does not propose to cancel the organization. But in March, agency leaders proposed to disband the ORD, which drew opposition from the Democratic Party in Congress.
In early May, the EPA announced it would reorganize its structure, which administrator Lee Zeldin wrote in a special editor for Newsweek that would “improve” the agency and “integrate scientific staff directly into our program office.” The agency said it will build a new office for Applied Science and Environmental Solutions (OASE), which will sit in the administrator’s office.
Scientists who previously worked in the Policy Office told Wired that this means “we will eventually see science that is over-influenced by policy interests. I don’t think this leads to policy decisions that are empirically supported.”
Following May’s restructuring announcement, ORD employees are encouraged to apply for work elsewhere in the agency. Multiple workers who spoke with Wired said the posting of these new positions was simple and had little description of the real need for the job. A job posting seen by the Wired labels the role as an “Interdisciplinary Science & Engineering Position” without information on subject areas, teams, or scientific expertise.
The restructuring of EPA has been temporarily stagnated by lawsuits. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court stopped a preliminary injunction, preventing further reductions in 17 federal agencies, including the EPA.
Monday’s call: ORD leadership told employees that all ORD-related laboratories will remain open, a news contrary to some previous reports. Still, workers say it is becoming increasingly difficult to carry out science on the EPA. An EPA spokesman said that since the beginning of the year, more than 325 ORD workers, one-fifth of the ORD rankings, have voluntarily retired. One scientist told Wired that while they usually have a small team to help with their field work, they were left to handle everything alone, including “dish washing and label bottles.” They said the cumbersome new financial approval process also led to chemicals, i.e. they ordered months of delays and expensive equipment sitting without any repairs.
Since taking office, Zeldin has made it clear that he intends to relax environmental regulations, especially those that affect business. Last week, he wrote an op-ed article on Fox News’s advertisement on how the agency will remove the process of the Clean Air Act allowing power plants and data centers to “make America the AI capital of the world.” Ord scientists fear that the dissolution of their office will only make the pro-business task easier.
“If you end up withdrew from the air quality regulations, and at this point, we know that ozone pollution can lead to premature deaths and chronic effects – if you backed the rules, you’ll see too many deaths and disease cases,” a scientist told Wired. “My guess is [EPA leadership] Don’t want to know how bad it will be answered to a question. ”
