ORD's structure allows for independent research, which EPA scientists believe is essential for quality work. Past experiences in policy offices revealed pressure to align science with predetermined policy. Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership criticized ORD but did not suggest its elimination. The EPA's proposed reorganization aims to integrate scientific staff into program offices, leading to concerns about science being influenced by policy interests. Critics argue this may undermine empirically supportable decisions in future policies.
Several EPA scientists stressed to WIRED that ORD's current structure, which allows research to happen independent of the policy-making that occurs in other parts of the agency, is crucial to producing quality work. One told WIRED that they worked in a scientific role in an EPA policy office under the first Trump administration. There, they felt that their job was to 'try and mine the science to support a policy decision that had already been made.' The structure at ORD, they said, provides a layer of insulation between decision-makers and the scientific process.
The plan did not, however, propose doing away with the organization. But in March, documents presented to the White House by agency leadership proposed dissolving ORD, resulting in backlash from Democrats in Congress. In early May, the EPA announced it would be reorganizing its structure, which administrator Lee Zeldin wrote in a Newsweek op-ed would 'improve' the agency by 'integrating scientific staff directly into our program offices.'
Putting much of ORD's scientific work in policy offices, the scientist who previously worked in a policy office told WIRED, means that 'we're going to end up seeing science that has been unduly influenced by policy interests. I don't think that's going to result in policy decisions that are empirically supportable.'
ORD was heavily singled out in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership document, the policy blueprint that has closely anticipated the Trump administration's moves in office. It described the branch as 'precautionary, bloated, unaccountable, closed, outcome-driven, hostile to public and legislative input, and inclined to pursue political rather than purely scientific goals.'
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