Former EPA Official on Trump Gutting Science Research Office: "People Are Not Going to Be Protected"

The Trump administration has shuttered the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific arm, the EPA Office of Research and Development. Hundreds of chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists will lose their jobs under the administration’s plan to aggressively tear down environmental regulations and defund the EPA. Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, a former top administrator in the Office of Research and Development, says the loss of the division means the loss of essential services like air and water quality monitoring that protects public health. “We are losing a treasure trove of historical knowledge, of scientific expertise, and really it’s going to limit what information, what science would be available for the agency to consider in protecting our health and our environment,” she says.