This EPA research office safeguarded Americans’ health. Trump just eliminated it.

For more than half a century, the research and development office of the environmental protection agency, or ord, has provided EPA independent research on everything, from ozone pollution to pesticides such as glyphosate. Last week, after months of speculation and denial, EPA officially confirmed that it eliminated its research division and reduced thousands of other employees of its payroll in the agency’s quest to reduce 23% of its labor. The latest measures are added to nearly 4,000 staff members who have already resigned, withdrawn or dismissed, according to the agency calculations.

The decision came directly to the heels of an order from the Supreme Court which launched the efforts of the Trump administration to reduce and restructure the federal government.

With approximately 1,115 employees – only 7% of EPA staff at the start of President Donald Trump’s second term – the research office played a disproportionate role by helping the agency to fulfill its legal mandate to use “best available science” in its mission to protect human health and the environment. Ord Science supported many EPA restrictions on contaminants in air, water and soil, and has formed the basis of regulations on per- and polyfluoroalkyle, APFA Or “forever chemicals”, in drinking water, fatal particles in air, carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere and chemicals and metals such as asbestos and lead.

“Without a research arm, it will be very difficult for EPA to issue new standards for air or aquatic pollutants, toxic chemicals, pesticides or other dangers,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the faculty of the Sabin Center for Climate Center.

Ord, which works with states, local governments and tribes in addition to its federal work, has six national research programs, each focused on a different aspect of health and the environment. Research undertaken in these centers included the study of how to protect water systems from terrorist attacks, understand the impacts of extreme weather on human health and to model the economic advantages of the reduction of air pollution.

The EPA said that it moves a little SOF staff in other parts of the EPA, including in its air offices, water and chemicals and a new applied science office and environmental solutions within the EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin. The agency said that the moves will allow taxpayers to save nearly $ 750 million and produce an agency that looks closely at the narrow version of the agency that existed under President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s. The objective, the agency said, is to “prioritize research and science”.

In an e-mail in Grist, a spokesperson for the agency called the media on the dissolution of the “biased” ordeal and denied that changes will affect the quality of the science of EPA. “Friday’s announcement is not an elimination of science and research,” said the agency.

But the former employees of the EPA and the environmental defenders say that the dissolution of the Ord will weaken both the research capacities of the EPA and will put its scientific independence in danger of political interference.

“Part of the reason why the Ord is a separate office is to preserve scientific integrity,” said Chris Frey, a associate dean of North Carolina State University who worked in the office from 1992 to 2024, more recently as an assistant administrator under former president Joe Biden. “From a societal point of view, it is a huge victory for the public that these decisions are based on evidence and not only the opinions of the stakeholders to have an interest acquired in a result.” The EPA has not said how many scientists of the SOF will be allowed to continue working at the agency.

Already, the American regulation system offers chemical companies like 3M and Dupont a great influence on how the chemicals they produce are controlled, a strategy known to fail. Under the addict substances control act, or TSCA, EPA has 90 days to assess the risks of a chemical before it arrives the market.

The EPA’s decision to dissolve the IUD and to integrate part of its scientists into the agency’s policies’ development infrastructure should benefit chemical and industrial polluters by rubbing the boundaries between science and politics, according to scientific defenders. Research carried out in order not only founded new EPA regulations, but they also provided the scientific basis for the application of TSCA.

“There are many ways to tell the truth about the impacts of pollutants that are not practiced for the regulated industry,” said Gretchen Goldman, president of the non -profit defense organization The Union of Conc. “They probably celebrate on this subject.”

Despite recent victories, industry trade and lobby groups are pressure for even more freedom. Last week, on the same day, the EPA announced that it dissolved the Ord and a day after the EPA exempted separately from dozens of chemicals and power plants from air pollution rules and Bide-Ere emissions, the president and the leader of the American Chemistry Council Chris Jahn made the idea of modify Washington examine.

“The administrator of the EPA Zeldin, the White House, the Congress, the Congress is examining all of this at the moment,” he said, “to potentially make TSCA updates to work more effectively in the long term.”