Gutting EPA research division would expose people to dangerous pollution and shield powerful polluters

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.—The Trump administration’s reported plan to dissolve the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific research division, the Office of Research and Development, would endanger people and communities across the America from industrial toxic pollution, including vulnerable children and pregnant women. The plan would derail research that protects families and communities’ health by examining how best to limit pollution and would place people instead at the mercy of powerful polluters.

“Doing away with the research that protects people from big polluters lays bare the administration’s intent to shield powerful industrial interests at the expense of families and communities,” said Geoff Gisler, program director at the Southern Environmental Law Center. “This plan would prevent people from having information about pollution in our drinking water and the air we breathe, robbing Americans of the ability to take action and stop pollution before our families and communities suffer. If the Environmental Protection Agency cannot research the health risks from pollutants, it cannot fulfill its Congressional responsibility to protect people against harmful pollution.”

EPA’s scientific research division contributed to helping to protect communities from toxic coal ash pollution, PFAS pollution, lead exposure, and many other harmful pollutants including ethylene oxide. The Office of Research and Development was the driver behind EPA’s move to list ethylene oxide—which was harming communities in Memphis, TN—as a cancer-causing chemical in 2016.

As a notable example, scientists from the research division co-authored the study that uncovered Chemours and DuPont’s toxic PFAS pollution into the Cape Fear River and treated drinking water for about 500,000 people in North Carolina. A subsequent court-enforceable agreement proved that PFAS pollution can be stopped at the industrial source before it contaminates drinking water sources and burdens communities nearby and downstream, so the polluter pays for treatment instead.

The Office of Research and Development has 10 locations across the country, including several hundred people at the EPA campus in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina and additional employees in offices in Athens, GA; Gulf Breeze, FL; Washington, DC; Edison, NJ; Narragansett, RI, Cincinnati, OH; Duluth, MN, Ada, OK; Corvallis, OR; and Newport, OR.