After several years of recovery from the turmoil of the last Donald Trump administration, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now preparing to make deeper staff cuts and work to protect Americans from pollution and the climate crisis as Trump prepares to return to office. The white house.
When he was last president, Trump rescinded more than 100 environmental rules and pledged to leave “just a little bit of the EPA” remaining “because you can’t destroy business,” prompting the departure of hundreds of agency employees amid a firestorm of political interference. and retaliation against government employees. A bigger exodus is expected this time, as employees fear they will become targets on the front lines in what could be the biggest disruption in the agency’s 50-year history.
“People are in a state of anxiety and fear [and] “We are preparing for the worst,” said Nicole Cantillo, an EPA water specialist and president of AFGE Local 704, which represents agency employees in the Midwest.
“We got a taste of what was going to happen and how we were targeted the last time,” she said. “From the emails and text messages I’m receiving, a lot of people are going to leave. There are so many things that could come at us that could destroy the EPA as we know it.”
Cantillo said the union is already seeking to protect itself by leaving its office at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, giving up use of EPA computers and separating union dues from the federal payroll system. “We have to try to protect our people by being independent of the agency,” she said. “But people will have to evaluate whether they can withstand the attacks that will come their way.”
This concern stems from the experiences of the recent Trump administration, which removed a wide range of environmental regulations and attempted to cut the agency’s budget by a third.
Many of the nation’s water utilities have opposed limits on PFAS and lead in drinking water. Photo: Norphoto/Getty Images
Some employees who opposed this agenda have been criticized, with a recent inspector general report finding that scientists were encouraged to omit evidence of the harms of chemicals, such as cancer and abortion. The report found that at least three of these scientists, when they objected, were removed from their roles, with supervisors describing the dissenters as “stupid” and “piranhas.”
The incoming Trump administration will seek to reshape the EPA’s workforce using a mechanism called Schedule F, which allows the president to purge the agency of expert staff, replace them with political loyalists, and move regional offices. At the same time, many of EPA’s aging workforce may choose to retire, as about one-third of the agency’s workforce is eligible to do so.
Trump’s allies promised to attack those who remain. “When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly seen as the bad guys,” Russell Vought, who served as director of Trump’s Office of Management and Budget, said in a recent speech. .
“We want them to be defunded so that the EPA can’t enforce all the rules against our energy industry because they don’t have the financial bandwidth to do so. We want to put them in shock.”
The EPA currently has more than 16,000 employees, adding more than 6,000 during Joe Biden’s administration as the agency sought to rebuild. During Biden’s tenure, the agency has stepped up enforcement of pollution rules, banned toxic pesticides, strengthened chemical safety protections, and targeted the climate crisis by creating new regulations to cut planet-heating emissions from cars, trucks and power plants.
Much of this work now faces demolition. Project 2025, the conservative manifesto written by former Trump officials, calls for eliminating entire offices within the EPA, such as those that deal with environmental justice and pollution law enforcement, as well as speeding up approvals for chemicals and scaling back regulations.
“It will be a complete collapse because Trump’s followers have learned what to do and are more extreme this time,” said Tim Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “They were transparent about [their] The desire to expel those who disagree with their agenda. Loyalty will be the first factor in civil service jobs.
In a memo distributed to employees on Wednesday, EPA Administrator Michael Regan acknowledged there was “fear and uncertainty” about the consequences of the election. “Let us approach our work with compassion and grace, and may we use the remaining days of this administration to further advance our mission and ensure that communities across this country have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink,” he wrote.
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The EPA under Biden has taken several steps to improve water quality and rein in toxic chemical pollution. It has implemented strict drinking water limits for toxic PFAS and lead, including a requirement to replace the nation’s municipal lead lines.
The agency also classified two of the most common PFAS as hazardous substances, making the industry financially responsible for some cleanups. Under two new proposed rules, chemical makers would face stronger scrutiny for new PFAS and other toxic chemicals, and an EPA executive told The Guardian that the agency only this year recovered from the previous chaos of the Trump administration.
Trump will kill, undo or try to sabotage progress, said Betsy Sutherland, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency’s water division. “It’s heartbreaking,” she said. “We will lose another four years.”
The new chemical review rules are only proposed and could be quickly repealed by the next administration. Trump’s EPA will certainly try to rescind drinking water rules on lead and PFAS, as it has done previously with similar regulations, Southerland said.
The EPA early this year gave water utilities five years instead of the usual three to meet new PFAS limits, so many of the nation’s water systems have not begun to comply with the rules, and most have not begun replacing lead lines.
Many of the nation’s water utilities have opposed limits on PFAS and lead in drinking water, claiming that they are too expensive to implement and provide little societal benefit. Industry players Trump is likely to appoint to the EPA are likely to take the same position. However, the repeal process can take four years, and previous Trump administration attempts to shorten the timeline often resulted in courts overturning repeals because the EPA did not follow the law, Southerland said.
Project 2025 and industry players involved in the first administration have outlined plans to derail the agency’s toxic chemicals regulatory program more broadly. They have proposed eliminating the EPA’s system for assessing the health risks of chemicals, and halting research on any chemicals for which there is no congressional authorization.
“With the last Trump administration, there were some responsible, reasonable appointees,” said Stan Myburgh, former acting deputy administrator of the EPA. “These people have said they won’t come back, so there will be people with an ideological agenda. It will be worse than last time.”
