Dear Commons Community,
H. Christopher Frey has an editorial in today’s Science entitled, “The EPA’s shaken foundation” that comments on the shutdown of the EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD) . His main message is “even with many environmental challenges to address, the EPA ORD was eliminated by the Trump administration in July. Cutting the legs off a science-based agency, as well as the paucity of information about how ORD would be absorbed into policy or political parts of the agency, raises concerns that fundamental, long-term research and innovation will suffer and that EPA science will be vulnerable to political interference. This could affect national and global science for years to come.”
The entire editorial is below.
Important reading.
Tony
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Science
“The EPA’s shaken foundation”
H. Christopher Frey
September 25, 2025
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was founded in 1970 during a period of pervasive pollution and environmental degradation. Based on a foundational principle to follow the science, its Office of Research and Development (ORD) has since developed and translated science to inform decisions that protect human health and the environment. Yet, even with many environmental challenges to address, ORD was eliminated by the Trump administration in July. Cutting the legs off a science-based agency, as well as the paucity of information about how ORD would be absorbed into policy or political parts of the agency, raises concerns that fundamental, long-term research and innovation will suffer and that EPA science will be vulnerable to political interference. This could affect national and global science for years to come.
For more than five decades, the ORD has provided the best available science on a range of issues, including toxic chemicals and pollutants in the air, water, and soil. Some of its work has flown in the face of controversies, yet has stood the test of time. Examples include its 1992 report on the health effects of second-hand cigarette smoke; 2016 report on hydraulic fracturing; numerous toxicity assessments under its Integrated Risk Information System program such as on formaldehyde, arsenic, and chromium(VI); and Integrated Science Assessments that have established the scientific criteria for air pollutants (as required by the Clean Air Act). Its recent research has been central to ongoing and emerging issues, such as improving the management of PFAS (per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances) in the environment, and mitigating health and environmental impacts of wildfire smoke. ORD also has been a global leader in developing new, better, faster, and less expensive methods to test chemicals for health effects.
Notably, ORD was designed to be separate from EPA’s national policy-making offices and from EPA’s administrator to protect its scientists from direct managerial or political interference. Yet, as an independent program within EPA, ORD could engage with policy offices to identify information gaps that, if addressed by research, could improve the scientific basis of agency decisions. ORD also produced research to provide knowledge for states and Tribes, which generally lack resources to conduct research. Moreover, as a single research entity, ORD achieved efficiencies that would be lost by siloing research into individual EPA regulatory offices and the administrator’s office.
According to social media posts, some former ORD staff are now siloed into EPA policy offices, disconnected from an interdisciplinary camaraderie and support structure that enabled EPA to have a more holistic systems approach to addressing scientific problems. EPA also announced that it will relocate some former ORD staff into a new unit reporting directly to the administrator called the Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions. It is not yet clear what this entity will do. Further, it is not clear how scientists reassigned from ORD to the administrator’s or policy offices can be protected from political interference, a prospect further worsened by a recent executive order—Restoring Gold Standard Science—that increases political control over scientists.
The loss of ORD is already felt. For example, EPA proposes to rescind a 2009 finding that greenhouse gases endanger public health. ORD would have been able to review and update the science pertaining to the 2009 finding. Instead, EPA is relying on a controversial and unbalanced “Climate Working Group” report issued in July 2025 by the US Department of Energy. Given its extensive experience in assessment science that comports with applicable laws such as the Information Quality Act, ORD would have been in a better position to prepare a far more credible report.
Without its research arm, EPA will lack credible science to make decisions about protecting national public health and the environment. This loss also signals a reduced US commitment to the environment that weakens global public health. For example, ORD is a world leader in understanding the effect of climate change on air quality, ecosystems and water quality, community resilience, and human health, including the role of wildfires, heat, floods, and drought. Its signature scientific contributions nationally and internationally include environmental measurement methods; models of pollutant transport and fate; methods for assessing pollutant hazard and quantifying toxicity; approaches to prevent, mitigate, clean up, or destroy contaminants in the environment; and integrated assessments to address major challenges. Leaving this agency to “fly blind” without a sound scientific foundation is a threat not only to America’s well-being but also to US leadership on the world stage.
10.1126/science.aec2623
- Christopher Freyis the Futrell Distinguished University Professor of Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA, and served the US EPA as a deputy assistant administrator of Science Policy (2021–2022) and as the EPA science adviser and assistant administrator of the Office of Research and Development (2022–2024). [email protected]
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