#EPA office of research and development

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

😢

[stevensaus]

Win for chemical industry as EPA shutters scientific research office

Companies feared rules and lawsuits based on Office of Research and Development assessments.

Win for chemical industry as EPA shutters scientific research office

Archive Links: ais ia

[nationallawreview]

White House OSTP Releases PFAS Federal R&D Strategic Plan

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) announced on September 3, 2024, the release of its Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Federal Research and Development Strategic Plan (Strategic Plan). Prepared by the Joint Subcommittee on Environment, Innovation, and Public Health PFAS Strategy Team (PFAS ST) of the National Science and Technology Council, the Strategic Plan…

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #35

Sep 20-27 2024

President Biden and Vice-President Harris announced new actions to curb gun violence at the one year anniversary of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention. The Office is the first ever White House office to deal with the issue of guns and has been overseen by the Vice-President. President Biden signed a new Executive Order aimed at combatting the emerging threat of machinegun conversion devices. These devices allow the conversion of semi-automatic firearms to a rate of fire that can match military machineguns, up to 20 bullets in one second. The EO also targets the threat of 3-D printed guns. The EO also addresses active schooler drills at schools. While almost every school conducts them there is little uniformity in how they are carried out, and no consensus on the most effective version of a drill. President Biden's EO directions the development of a research based active shooter drills, which maximize both student physical and mental safety.

President Biden celebrated the one year anniversary of the American Climate Corps and announced new Climate Corp programs. The Climate Corps has seen 15,000 young people connected to well paid jobs in clean energy and climate resilience jobs across America. The EPA and AmeriCorps announced a new Environmental Justice Climate Corps program which will connect 250 American Climate Corps members with local communities and over the next 3 help them achieve environmental justice projects. In addition HUD announced it will be the 8th federal agency to partner with the Climate Corp, opening the door to its involvement in Housing. Since its launch the American Climate Corp has inspired 14 states to launch their own state level version of the program, most recently just this week the New Jersey Climate Corps.

The Biden-Harris Administration announced that 4.2 million small business owners and self-employed people get their health insurance through the ACA marketplace. Up from 1.4 million ten years ago when President Obama and then Vice-President Biden rolled out the marketplaces. The self-employed are 3 times as likely as other Americans to use the marketplaces for their insurance, one out of every 5 getting coverage there. The ACA passed by President Obama, defended and expanded by President Biden, has freed millions of Americans to start their own businesses without fear of losing health coverage for them and their families.

The Departments of Transportation and Labor pressed freight railroad companies to close the gap and offer paid sick time to all their employees. Since 2022 under President Biden's leadership the number of Class I freight railroad employees who have access to paid sick days increased from 5% to 90%. Now the Biden-Harris Administration is pushing to finish the job and get coverage to the last 10%.

The EPA announced $965 million to help school districts buy clean energy buses. This comes on top of the 3 billion the EPA has already spent to bring clean energy buses to America's schools. So far the EPA has helped replace 8,700 school buses, across 1,300 school districts in all 50 states, DC, tribal nations, and US Territories. 95% of these buses are zero-emission, battery-electric. The clean bus program is responsible for over 2/3rds of the electric school buses on the road today.

The Biden-Harris Administration took another step forward in its historic efforts to protect the Colorado River System by signing 5 water conservation agreements with local water authorities in California and Arizona. The two short term agreements will conserve over 717,000 acre-feet of water by 2026. Collectively adding 10 feet to Lake Mead’s elevation by 2026. The Colorado River Basin provides water for more than 40 million people and fuels hydropower resources in seven U.S. states.

The Department of The Interior announced $254 million to help support local parks, the largest such investment in history. The money will go to 54 projects across 24 states hoping to redevelopment or create new parks.

HHS announced $1.5 billion to help combat opioid addiction and prevent opioid overdose deaths. The money will support state and tribal governments and help pay for mobile clinics, naloxone kits, and treatment centers. This comes as nationwide overdose rates drop for the first time since 2020, thanks to strong investment in harm reduction efforts by the Biden-Harris team.

The Department of Agriculture announced it'll spend $466.5 million in food assistance and development worldwide this year. Through its McGovern-Dole Program, the United States is the largest donor to global school feeding programs. The USDA will help feed 1.2 million children in Angola, Bangladesh, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Laos, Malawi and Rwanda. Through its Food for Progress the USDA will help support 200,000 farmers in Benin, Cambodia, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Tunisia shift to climate-smart agriculture boosting food security in those nations and the wider region.

At a meeting at the UN First Lady Jill Biden announced a partnership between USAID and UNICEF to end childhood exposer to lead worldwide. Lead exposure kills 1.5 million people each year, mostly in the developing world.

The Senate approved the appointment of Byron Conway to a federal judgeship in Wisconsin. This makes the 213th federal judge that President Biden has appointed.

[typhlonectes]

EPA Proposes To Fire Hundreds of Scientists

“This is not designed to cut expenses, it's designed to destroy,” one official said.

The mood was grim at a town hall meeting called by the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday. The gathering came one day after the New York Times reported a bombshell — Lee Zeldin, the agency’s administrator, plans to dismantle its Office of Research and Development, eliminating 50 to 75 percent of its 1,500 or so chemists, toxicologists, biologists and other experts. The department, which conducts essential research to inform federal policies, plays a critical role in the agency’s mission to safeguard public health and the environment. Laying off most of its staff, many of whom are career scientists, would leave the EPA without the independent and rigorous science needed to develop effective regulations. No one consulted the office’s leaders about the plan...

Read more: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/epa-proposes-to-fire-hundreds-of-scientists/

[jamgrlsart]

ART REQUESTS FOR POLITICAL ACTION!!!

Hey y’all! So I don’t talk about where I work on fandom socials because I don’t want to dox myself or whatever but fun fact: I am a scientist in the Office of Research and Development at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency! I am speaking now as a private citizen and not as an EPA representative. An article from the NYT came out yesterday saying that the reduction in force plan for the EPA includes a dissolution of my office, which, to be clear, is the entire scientific research arm and the largest office of the agency. I don’t think it’s a stretch to think that would significantly hinder the EPA’s mission of protecting human health and the environment.

It’s not just the EPA: the unelected and not congressionally approved leader (Elon Musk) of the unofficial department that was not established by Congress (DOGE) is (illegally) coming after ALL federal services just so their billionaire friends can get richer. I know a lot of you are not U.S. Americans, so you can’t do anything, but for those of you who are: please do something, whether it’s calling or writing your reps, showing at a protest, or just talking to your family (talk to your family about Social Security, Medicare, and the VA particularly).

This is about the constitution (which has been violated an absurd amount of times in the last two months), it is about YOUR public services, it is about YOUR worker’s rights and civil rights, and it is, frankly, about the economy, which is already taking a hit.

Every little thing that you do counts 🙏🏼 AND if you do something I WILL FULFILL AN ART REQUEST FOR YOU!!! I have never done this before, so patience please 💖💖💖 but I will do my best and I look forward to hearing about your action!!! DM me with your political action after you have done it and your request (I may negotiate based on my skill level 😅).

Not sure where to start? Check out my post of resources for political action!

Would prefer to be told exactly what to do? I wrote you a script! For phone calls and emails.

[rjzimmerman]

Seems to me......this move is to remove the independent scientists from positions to protect us to positions to enhance the ability of chemical companies to hurt us. Typical republican "deregulation" strategy.

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

The Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday that it would disperse scientists from its independent research office to other divisions where they among other things will be tasked with approving the use of new chemicals.

Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the changes to the E.P.A. in a video, saying the agency was “shifting its scientific expertise” to focus on issues he described as “mission essential.”

Most of the immediate changes will affect the Office of Research and Development, the E.P.A.’s main research arm that conducts studies on things like the health and environmental risks of “forever chemicals” in drinking water and the best way to reduce fine particle pollution in the atmosphere.

An internal document previously reviewed by The New York Times outlined the Trump administration’s recommendation to eliminate that office, with plans to fire as many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists working on health and environmental research.

That didn’t happen on Friday, but the agency’s new priorities were made clear: One hundred and thirty jobs will be moved to an office at the agency tasked with approving new chemicals for use, Mr. Zeldin said. Chemicals industry groups have long complained of a backlog in approvals, which they say is stifling innovation.

At an all-hands staff meeting late Friday, Nancy Beck, a former lobbyist at the American Chemistry Council who now heads the E.P.A.’s chemicals office, told stunned scientists that it was “a very exciting time.”

“I encourage everyone throughout the agency to apply for these positions,” she said.

Trump administration officials indicated that more changes were in store for the research office. Scientists who were on the call said they were left with the impression that if they did not move into one of the new areas, their current jobs might be eliminated.

Also on Friday, the E.P.A. extended a deadline for accepting a deferred resignation offer to May 9.

“This feels like the Hunger Games,” said one employee of the research office who spoke on condition of anonymity, for fear of retaliation.

[project2028]

The Environmental Protection Agency has announced that it will begin eliminating its scientific research arm of the department.

Hundreds of scientists are slated to be fired. Decades of environmental research studies and programs are set to be gone.

Donald Trump and his administration denied that they would do this. THEY LIED.

This was all in Project 2025

[justinspoliticalcorner]

David Badash at NCRM:

Roughly 140 Environmental Protection Agency employees have been placed on administrative leave after signing a letter warning of political interference in the agency’s work—prompting critics to accuse the Trump administration of ignoring their First Amendment rights. Calling the letter “a remarkable rebuke of the agency’s political leadership,” The New York Times reported on Monday that more than 270 EPA employees had signed the public letter “denouncing what they described as the Trump administration’s efforts to politicize, dismantle and sideline the main federal agency tasked with protecting the environment and public health.”

On Thursday, the Times reported that 144 workers had been suspended, other news outlets put the number at 139. In that public letter, signatories said they are joining in “solidarity with employees across the federal government in opposing this administration’s policies,” and that they “stand together in dissent against the current administration’s focus on harmful deregulation, mischaracterization of previous EPA actions, and disregard for scientific expertise.” They detailed their five primary concerns, including, “Undermining public trust,” “Ignoring scientific consensus to benefit polluters,” “Reversing EPA’s progress in America’s most vulnerable communities,” “Dismantling the Office of Research and Development,” and “Promoting a culture of fear, forcing staff to choose between their livelihood and well-being.”

On Thursday, the 140 or so employees who allegedly had signed the letter with their official titles received emails saying they had been placed on leave for two weeks “pending an administrative investigation,” The New York Times reported. “The Environmental Protection Agency has a zero-tolerance policy for career bureaucrats unlawfully undermining, sabotaging, and undercutting the administration’s agenda as voted for by the great people of this country last November,” Brigit Hirsch, an EPA spokesperson, said in a statement, according to Bloomberg Law News.

“The letter, addressed to EPA head Lee Zeldin, alleged the agency has used its communication platforms to ‘promote misinformation and overtly partisan rhetoric,'” Bloomberg added. “One example the signatories cited was a March statement laying out the administration’s deregulatory agenda, in which Zeldin referred to ‘the climate change religion.'”

The anti-free speech Trump Regime’s EPA has put at least 140 EPA workers on suspension for signing a letter warning of political interference in the agency’s work.

[canichangemyblogname]

“The Environmental Protection Agency announced Friday afternoon that it is eliminating its scientific division, known as the Office of Research and Development… ORD conducts critical research to "safeguard human health and ecosystems from environmental pollutants," according to its website.”

[mariacallous]

In early May, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would split up the agency’s main arm devoted to scientific research. According to a report from NPR, scientists at the 1,500-person Office of Research and Development were told to apply to roughly 500 new scientific research positions that would be sprinkled into other areas of the agency—and to expect further cuts to their organization in the weeks to come.

This reorganization threatens the existence of a tiny but crucial program housed within this office: the Integrated Risk Information System Program, commonly referred to as IRIS. This program is responsible for providing independent research on the risks of chemicals, helping other offices within the agency set regulations for chemicals and compounds that could pose a danger to human health. The program’s leader departed recently, ahead of the restructuring announcement.

The EPA’s reorganization, experts say, will likely break up this crucial program—which has been targeted for decades by the chemical industry and right-wing interests.

“Unfortunately, right now, it looks like the polluters won,” says Thomas Burke, the founder and emeritus director of the Johns Hopkins Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute and a former deputy assistant administrator of the EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

“The May 2 announcement is all part of a larger, comprehensive effort to restructure the entire agency,” EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou told WIRED in an email. “EPA is working expeditiously through the reorganization process and will provide additional information when it’s available.”

Formed in the mid-1980s, the IRIS program was designed to investigate the health impacts of chemicals, collating the best available research from across the world to provide analyses of potential hazards from new and existing substances. The program confers with other offices within the EPA to identify top chemicals of concern that merit further research and study.

Unlike other offices in the EPA, the IRIS program has no regulatory responsibilities; rather, it exists solely to provide science on which to base potential new regulations. Experts say this insulates IRIS-produced assessments from outside pressures that could influence research done in other areas of the agency.

“There’s independence” in being in a centralized program like IRIS, says Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, also a former principal deputy assistant administrator of the Office of Research and Development and a former EPA science adviser. “They’re not trying to evaluate risk for a specific purpose. They’re just evaluating risk and providing fundamental information.”

Since its inception, IRIS has created a database of more than 570 chemicals and compounds with assessments of their potential human health effects. This body of research underpins not just federal policy, but helps guide state and international regulations as well.Got a Tip?Are you a current or former government employee who wants to talk about what's happening? We'd like to hear from you. Using a nonwork phone or computer, contact the reporter securely on Signal at mollytaft.76.

The IRIS database is the “gold standard for health assessments for chemical pollutants,” says Burke. “Virtually all of our regulated pollutants, virtually all of our cleanups, virtually all of our major successes in regulating toxic chemicals were touched by IRIS or the IRIS staff.”

Yet IRIS has faced a significant uphill battle in recent years. For one, there’s the sheer number of chemicals it has had to review with limited manpower. There are more than 80,000 chemicals that have been registered for use in the US, and chemical companies register hundreds more each year. Some of the chemicals IRIS is working to research have been substances of concern for years, while some have more recently drawn new scrutiny. For instance, forever chemicals—synthetic materials so named because of their persistence in the environment—have been in use for decades, but their recent prevalence in tests of water and soil prompted IRIS in 2019 to begin creating draft assessments for five common types of these chemicals.

Opposition from industry has also bogged down IRIS reviews. The very existence of the IRIS program, experts say, threatens many crucial chemicals used by a variety of industries. A new IRIS assessment finding that a specific chemical that’s been in use for years is carcinogenic, for instance, could hamper industries that rely on that chemical if the EPA decides to pass new regulation. Chemical companies and lobbying groups have waged a long battle against the IRIS program, using various tactics—including introducing opposing research produced by paid consulting groups—to downplay the program’s findings and delay assessments. In 2018, for instance, The Intercept reported that an environmental consulting company that counts chemical giants among its clients challenged an IRIS assessment of chloroprene, a chemical used in rubber production. The program was forced to use resources and staff time putting together an extensive response defending its analysis.

“‘Hate the policy, attack the science’ became a strategy for many major industries,” says Burke. “They learned that the delay game of attacking the science led to the delay of implementing regulation.”

President Donald Trump’s first administration also tried to attack IRIS. A 2018 Senate appropriations bill suggested eliminating IRIS’s independence by folding it into another program within the EPA. IRIS also faced challenges from new leadership inside the EPA, including Nancy Beck, a former policy director at the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the main lobbying arm for the chemical industry, who oversaw the EPA’s office of chemical regulation between 2017 and 2020. Yet Congress eventually chose to fund the program that year, and the general structure of IRIS survived past the first Trump administration.

But with such a long track record of opposition—and with Trump’s second administration ripping up entire agencies—it’s perhaps unsurprising that IRIS is on the chopping block now. The program was singled out twice in Project 2025. IRIS has also been attacked by legislation introduced in Congress this session, called the No IRIS Act. A press release for the House bill quotes the CEO of ACC, who also authored an op-ed in the Washington Examiner in March calling on the agency to eliminate the program.

In a separate press release issued last week, the ACC lauded EPA administrator Lee Zeldin’s choice to reorganize the agency. While the EPA has made no public comment about the future of the IRIS program, the press release devotes two paragraphs to IRIS, claiming that the program’s assessments “jeopardize access to critical chemistries, undercut national priorities, and harm American competitiveness,” while asserting the ACC’s support for the No IRIS Act.

“The IRIS program has never been authorized by Congress, and since 2009 the program has remained on the [Government Accountability Office’s] High-Risk List, which identifies government programs that are vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, or mismanagement,” the ACC press release states. But in the original High-Risk List addition in 2009, the GAO stated that it added IRIS not over concerns of fraud or abuse, but because the program was not working through analyses of harmful chemicals fast enough to protect the public. “Some of the IRIS assessments that have been in progress the longest cover key chemicals likely to cause cancer or other significant health effects,” the 2009 listing states. Several reforms since then, the GAO report states, have improved the program. GAO’s current critiques of IRIS, updated in 2025, focus mainly around a lack of staff and budget needed to speed up reviews.

Tom Flanagin, a spokesperson from the American Chemistry Council, told WIRED in an email that the group believes “the IRIS program should be disbanded and the responsibilities of the program should be returned to the program offices” and that Congress should pass the No IRIS Act.

“IRIS assessments jeopardize access to critical chemistries, undercut national priorities, and harm American competitiveness,” Flanagin added.

If IRIS is eliminated, experts say, EPA research on toxic chemicals will continue—but the work will likely be siloed to offices dealing with specific aspects of the environment. Instead of a central body coordinating independent reviews, individual offices will have to do more targeted assessments of chemical impacts.

“If Office of Water wants to look at a chemical like arsenic, and the [Office of Air and Radiation] is also looking at arsenic, and Superfund is also looking at arsenic—they could come up with different numbers, and that could set up a vulnerability for the agency,” says Orme-Zavaleta.

Research on chemicals will now also be loaded onto a reduced workforce of scientists working under an administration with new priorities. While significantly slashing the agency’s budget, Zeldin has said he intends to put EPA staff to work clearing the backlog of new industrial chemicals and pesticides awaiting approval in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. That office is now headed, once again, by Beck, the former ACC policy director, who helped rewrite rules making it more difficult to track the health consequences of certain forever chemicals during her first tenure at the EPA.

“Your attack on Dr. Beck is insulting and unfounded,” Vaseliou, the EPA spokesperson, told WIRED. “This is yet another example of false accusations that left propaganda also known as media take as gospel. It’s fascinating that the liberal media continues to mischaracterize Dr. Beck’s time at ACC, fails to mention her time as a career civil servant (at both the state and federal level for over a decade) and fails to mention that she was a Science and Technology Policy Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science for two years, a program that is typically considered to be highly competitive and highly regarded.”

“As she has done her entire career, Dr. Beck remains committed to being led by the science, unlike Biden EPA appointees with major ethical issues that were beholden to radical stakeholder groups,” Vaseliou added.

Regardless of how research is reorganized moving forward, experts say that the mass of scientists being forced out of the agency will slow down any future regulation of chemicals.

“Nothing is getting regulated right now,” says Orme-Zavaleta. “Reorganization takes a lot of time. They’re here for a four-year stint, and not much is going to happen other than rollbacks. That’s part of the strategy: Have people leave, and upend things so much that nothing is getting done.”

[jamgrlsart]

I love your "art requests for political action" project!

Is there any way folks can help you?

Hello!! Thank you so much!! I super appreciate this question😄😄😄. Below are some ways folks can help:

If you are yourself an artist or writer, feel free to start your own art or writing requests for political action!! Tag me in your post and I will reblog it—the more people promoting political action, the better!!!

I would like to put together a post of resources to help people get started: things like 5 Calls or mobilize.us. If you have a website or organization or substack or anything like that that you think would be helpful for folks, send them my way or make your own post and tag me. I will integrate your resources into my list! Let’s make it easy for folks to find actions they can do!

If you are experienced in things like calling representatives, going to protests, getting involved in organizing groups, etc, send me or make a post (and tag me) with your advice that could help newbies feel more confident!

My own political action has been very focused on protecting public services and defending workers rights in response to the attack on the federal workforce, which I am a part of. My original post highlighted the news of the plan to dissolve the Office of Research and Development in the EPA, which is deeply personal to me as my place of employment, but also very important to me as an environmental scientist dedicated to protecting human health—but there is so much happening, it’s hard to keep up with all of it! If there are other issues related to the federal workforce—like if you are specifically concerned about USAID or Social Security or the Department of Education—or issues not related to the federal workforce, like the issue of passport denial for trans folks, or anything else you have heard about that you want to shine a light on, put together a post about that issue and a call to action for folks to respond to that item directly!! Tag me so I can reblog it 😄!

[See my pinned post for info on Art Requests for Political Action!]

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this Chicago Tribune story:

Thirty million acres of unprotected wetlands across the Upper Midwest, including 1 million acres in Illinois, are at risk of being destroyed largely by industrial agriculture — wetlands that provide nearly $23 billion in annual flood mitigation benefits, according to new research. In the long term, these wetlands could prevent hundreds of billions of dollars of flood damage in the region.

“Wetlands can help mitigate flooding and save our homes. They can help clean our water. They can capture and store carbon. They support hunting and recreation, and they support the commercial fishing industry by providing habitats for the majority of commercially harvested fish and shellfish,” said study author Stacy Woods, research director for the Food and Environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nationwide nonprofit science advocacy organization.

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court stripped protections from freshwater and inland wetlands in its Sackett v. EPA ruling, allowing private property development in wetland areas that don’t have a “continuous surface connection” to permanent bodies of water.

But environmentalists say wetlands are rarely truly “isolated” from a watershed, no matter how inland they may be. Some experts worry that after President-elect Donald Trump takes office, he might roll back President Joe Biden’s effort to counter the Supreme Court ruling by expanding federal regulations of small bodies of water and wetlands under the Clean Water Act. Undoing those protections would leave control of wetlands up to the states, some of which — like Illinois — have no strong safeguards in place.

Half of the nation’s wetlands have disappeared since the 1780s, and urban development and agriculture in Illinois have destroyed as much as 90% of its original marshy, swampy land. Nowadays, its wetlands are vastly outnumbered by the 26.3 million acres of farmland that cover almost three-fourths of the state.

While urban and rural development and climate change disturbances contribute to the problem, the expansion of large-scale agriculture poses the biggest threat to wetlands, according to the study. Advocates see an opportunity in the next farm bill in Congress to support and encourage farmers to protect wetlands on their property.

A wetland is a natural sponge, said Paul Botts, president and executive director of The Wetlands Initiative, a Chicago-based nonprofit that designs, restores and creates wetlands.

By absorbing water from storms and flooding, wetlands can effectively reduce the risks and destructive effects of these disasters, which are intensifying and becoming more frequent because of a changing climate. Previous research estimated that 1 acre of lost wetland can cost $745 in annual flood damage to residential properties, an amount that taxpayers fund through local, state��or federal assistance programs.

[learnwithmearticles]

RNP on Climate Change

The idea of a Republican winning the United States 2024 presidential election is disastrous for many people. It would result in the loss of human rights, increased violence in many states, and even more deaths from worse public health conditions.

It would also be deadly because of its expected effects on the environment

Both during and in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential term, we saw numerous violations of policies, demagogy, and loosened regulations. This was even before three Supreme Court Justice seats were filled by him.

Now, the Republican party also has a firmer guideline for their governmental plans called Project 2025. It plainly explains their intentions and how they wish to achieve them. These include measures to end many policies and rules regarding environmental responsibility.

With this solidified roadmap, popular opinion is that these changes will happen much faster and more forcefully if Trump wins again.

The EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency is the federal agency concerned with environmental policies. When violations of things like the Clean Air Act occur, the EPA works out the relevant charges and settlements, providing penalties to companies that harm the environment.

The actions of the EPA go far in protecting both the environment and human health. They measure greenhouse gases, work with industries to reduce those emissions, monitor water quality, and much more.

Project 2025 discusses reducing the EPA’s control in these areas. This includes repealing the AIM Act of 2020, which works to reduce HFC use and facilitate the transition to alternatives that are not greenhouse gases and not harmful to human health.

Another targeted policy is the Inflation Reduction Act. Specifically, Project 2025 calls for undoing the grants from this Act given towards the development of zero-emission vehicles. The US Department of the Treasury has stated that the Inflation Reduction Act is the largest investment in reducing carbon emissions in US history.

Plans for the Climate

In addition to affecting the EPA, a Republican presidency would repeal many other important policies.

For example, in addition to HFCs, it would reduce regulations on PFAS, another group of pollutants that cause a wealth of health issues including liver damage, cancers, and birth defects. PFAS can take over 1000 years to begin to break down, and build up in water, food, and many other everyday amenities.

Energy-efficient lightbulbs, household appliances, and showerheads are ways that individuals have been able to make a difference environmentally. They have specific requirements they have to meet in order to be advertised appropriately. Those requirements are also a target of Project 2025.

Many authors of Project 2025 also benefit from the oil industry. In addition to ending clean energy programs and offices, they intend to increase drilling for oil and gas in the US.

Overall, environmentalism is an enemy to the Republican party. They claim that many environmental acts and policies have been misused for political motives by the Left. Regulatory barriers such as the Endangered Species Act would be lowered. Even the most basic policy that took years of fighting to enact, the US Global Change Research Program, responsible for the National Climate Assessment, would be eliminated.

We would see a complete overhaul of current conduct, with many EPA departments being downsized or dismantled. Oil and gas production would increase drastically, and toxic chemicals would become far more abundant than they already are.

These actions are dangerous. Toxic chemicals are banned for a reason. Emission regulations exist for a reason. This plan is constructed by people who don’t believe that climate change or historic damage to the ozone layer are real. They do not understand how the environment works or do not care because profit and power are more important to them than a healthy, long-lasting future for the world.

The Republican party wants to continue -and worsen- our reliance on fossil fuels, claiming that this will make the US more energy independent. It will actually make us far more dependent because of its finite amounts and the damage it does to the environment.

The long-term efforts of the Republican party to build a biased government have created an extremely tenuous situation. The election in 2024 will be catastrophic to the future of this country if Republicans win. If they don’t, it still doesn’t mean the fight is over. The Democratic party also has a lot of work to do and needs a lot of change. Most importantly, we need to maintain momentum for electing officials who will champion the rights of people. If Republicans lose this election, their plans will simply move forward to be tried at the next opportunity. This is a continual fight for a reliable future.

Additional Resources

1. Changes to the EPA

2. EPA

3. Project 2025 on the EPA

4. The Inflation Reduction Act

5. Additional Targets of Republicans

6. Assault on Environmentalism

7. Oil and Gas Drilling Plans