How EPA Cuts Will Affect US Lives For Generations To Come

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We used to think of the US Environmental Protection Agency as the site where groundbreaking scientific research took place. One of the most important areas of inquiry by its scientific staff was released to the public in 2009, when the US EPA found that greenhouse gas emissions threatened public health and welfare.

No more. In 2025 the EPA rescinded this finding.

Rarely do federal websites any longer outline the cause-and-effect factors between human activities and climate change. It is no matter that, according to NASA, the vast majority of actively publishing climate scientists – 97% – agree that humans are causing global warming and climate change. The EPA has turned its proverbial back on stark evidence that emissions from burning coal, oil, and gas have fueled global warming. Today the EPA fails to calculate how setting maximum emissions levels correlates with saving human lives.

EPA cuts to funding and staffing are a big part of the problem — more than 1,500 biologists, chemists, and other experts at the EPA’s Office of Research and Development have been laid off, reassigned, or pressured to retire.

Today, only 124 EPA researchers remain.

What took a century to build could take decades to recover. Meanwhile, an internal EPA memo in one office reviewed by The New York Times says its future research must “align with agency and administration priorities.”

William K. Reilly, Christine Todd Whitman, and Gina McCarthy, former EPA administrators, chronicled early in the Trump 2.0 administration some of the many effects of the EPA reductions of clean health and environmental regulations.

• The Trump Administration’s roll back of tailpipe and smokestack standards will lead to 100 million asthma attacks and cause 200,000 premature deaths that could be avoided if we leave the standards in place.
• The Trump Administration’s weakening of enforcement of the Safe Drinking Water Act will leave communities across the country vulnerable to drinking water contamination without anyone held accountable.
• Overall efforts to weaken EPA will lead to more climate pollution: putting our safety, health and economy at risk from fires, storms, floods, and droughts.

They ask, “When the next catastrophe that spews pollutants into the air or contaminants into our drinking water or food supply arrives, who will deal with the emergency and its aftermath?”

Links among EPA Policy, Power, and Citizen Health

The EPA this year removed the crucial “endangerment finding” that is the foundation for key regulations regarding planet-warming pollution.Without the endangerment finding, federal climate policies to rein in emissions from vehicles and industrial sources have little legislative merit, and there is no longer an essential federal scientific consensus that greenhouse gases are harmful.

Hirji and Roston write in Bloomberg how many companies, such large refineries, petrochemical facilities, and power plants, have embraced the EPA cuts and regulatory reductions.

But not every company is happy. Edison Electric Institute says that ending federal regulation of greenhouse gas pollution could lead to inconsistent state-level regulations, lawsuits, difficult permitting, arduous financing, and delayed construction. And how will all those data centers get their power without the necessary transition to renewables, now that Big Oil is running US federal policy?

Additionally, on May 18, the US EPA announced it will roll back drinking water limits on four PFAS, or “forever chemicals.” It will also delay compliance for two others. Maria Doa, senior director of chemicals policy at the Environmental Defense Fund, explains the failure of the Trump administration to address the important connection between competent scientific research and policy that affects human health.

“There’s nothing gold-standard about tearing down the science-based protections that help keep our drinking water safe. PFAS are highly toxic, even at very low levels, and are linked to liver damage, cancers and other health problems for children and pregnant women. Needlessly exposing millions of Americans to PFAS prioritizes the interests of polluters over the rest of us. It’s another way the Trump administration is making life more dangerous for American families.”

It’s not just environmental groups that are alarmed by forever chemicals. The EPA explains on its own website how this group of manufactured chemicals has been used in industry and consumer products since the 1940s. There are thousands of different PFAS, they say, with Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctane Sulfonate (PFOS) as two of the most widely used and studied chemicals in the PFAS group.

One common characteristic of concern of PFAS is that many break down very slowly and can build up in people, animals, and the environment over time, the EPA acknowledges. PFAS chemicals have been linked to cancer, obesity, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, decreased fertility, liver damage, hormone disruption and damage to the immune system.

Justin Chen, president of the agency union American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, told Bloomberg that, without the coterie of veteran  EPA scientists, lawyers, and other longtime employees, the EPA is “going to take years, if not decades, to rebuild.” That’s because longtime scientists have taken their institutional knowledge with them, often to countries beyond US borders.

Final Thoughts

EPA employees have issued a letter of significant concern to EPA Director Lee Zeldin. In it, they list five areas the Trump administration and the EPA have failed to protect the environment and public health:

1. Undermining public trust.
2. Ignoring scientific consensus to benefit polluters.
3. Reversing EPA’s progress in America’s most vulnerable communities.
4. Dismantling the Office of Research and Development.
5. Promoting a culture of fear, forcing staff to choose between their livelihood and well-being.

The Union of Concerned Scientists joined the more than 150 civil rights, environmental, faith, health, and worker organizations in signing and submitting the letter calling for the removal of Lee Zeldin from his role as administrator of the EPA. According to letter signatories, no EPA administrator in history — Democrat or Republican — has so brazenly betrayed the agency’s core mission.

Until Trump 2.0 decimated the EPA, it sent more than $4 billion every year — about 40% of the agency’s funding — to states, local governments, tribal nations and other entities. The effects of such funding losses are starting to be felt.

As the three former EPA administrators opined, we can’t keep US citizens safe “by gutting the very agencies we need to keep us safe.” The repercussions will likely percolate up as a groundswell of anti-Republican sentiment in the 2026 midterm elections.

Resources

“Do scientists agree on climate change?” NASA. 2024.

“Facts: The Trump administration’s attacks on EPA will harm public health and safety.” Environmental Protection Network.

“How the Trump administration ended independent science at the EPA.” Lisa Friedman. New York Times. April 27, 2026.

“Join with us in supporting the EPA staff.” Stand Up for Science. 2026.

“National Academies publish new report reviewing evidence for greenhouse gas emissions and US climate, health, and welfare.” National Academies. September 17, 2025.

“Our current understanding of the human health and environmental risks of PFAS.” EPA.

“Three former EPA leaders: You’ll miss it when it’s gone.”  William K. Reilly, Christine Todd Whitman, and Gina McCarthy. New York Times. February 27, 2025.

“Trump’s EPA rollbacks will reverberate for ‘decades.'” Zahra Hirji and Eric Roston. Bloomberg. February 12, 2026.

“Trump EPA weakens national drinking water protections for toxic ‘forever chemicals.” Maria Doa. EDF. May 18, 2026