Trickles of layoff plans at EPA, NIH hint at big cuts

Federal agencies are awash in uncertainty as details about reduction-in-force (RIF) plans, ordered by President Donald J. Trump, slowly seep out. As part of his Feb. 11 executive order to “eliminat[e] waste, bloat, and insularity,” Trump required federal agencies to prepare and submit reorganization plans by March 13 that include large-scale RIFs.

Many federal scientific agencies, including the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Agriculture, have yet to share details of their RIF plans. But parts of plans at other science agencies suggest that many federal workers may soon lose their jobs. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a few details of its plans ahead of the March 13 deadline, but employees mostly remain unaware of what’s to come, according to NIH staffers. And parts of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s plans were first reported March 17 by the New York Times.

According to a portion of the EPA’s reorganization plan shared with C&EN by Democratic staff on the US House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, the EPA is proposing to eliminate the Office of Research Development (ORD), the agency’s research arm.

The reorganization plan reviewed by the committee’s Democratic staff says the ORD has 1,540 employees, not counting special government employees and public health officers, “of which we anticipate a majority (50–75%) will not be retained.” The remaining ORD employees will be transferred to other EPA program offices, the plan says.

The ORD was created by congressional statute and “eliminating it is illegal,” California representative Zoe Lofgren, Democratic ranking member of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, says in a statement. “EPA cannot meet its legal obligation to use the best available science without ORD, and that’s the point,” she says.

“EPA is taking exciting steps as we enter the next phase of organizational improvements,” EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou says in an emailed statement. “While no decisions have been made yet, we are actively listening to employees at all levels to gather ideas on how to better fulfill agency statutory obligations, increase efficiency, and ensure the EPA is as up-to-date and effective as ever,” she says.

The EPA did not answer C&EN’s multiple requests for comments regarding the details of the leaked plan. Republican members of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee also did not reply to a C&EN request for comment by publishing time.

Eliminating the ORD would undermine the EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment, says Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, the former principal deputy assistant administrator for the ORD. Many of the environmental statutes that Congress passed in setting up the EPA require that the agency use the best available science to make policy decisions, she says. “Without having ORD there, that will limit what is considered the best available science. It'll give license to programs to basically cherry-pick [the] information that is available or that they want to inform a decision,” she says.

Orme-Zavaleta, who retired in 2021 after working at the EPA for over 40 years, says she has never seen this magnitude in cuts to EPA research. “Research largely has received bipartisan support because it helps provide answers to questions about what's in our environment,” she says.

As the research arm of the EPA, the ORD conducts studies on a broad range of topics, such as finding contaminants in the environment and developing ways to replace animal testing.

EPA head Lee Zeldin has said that he’s looking to cut spending at the agency by 65%. The ORD composes only about 10% of the EPA budget, Orme-Zavaleta says. “That means there's another 55% that they would be looking at," she says. “This show is just beginning for EPA,” Orme-Zavaleta says.

Cuts at health agency similarly vague

Details of RIF plans are also scant at the HHS. The agency houses multiple subagencies slated for cuts, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The HHS Office of General Counsel made its reorganization plans public on March 11. The new structure consolidates regional offices from 10 to 4 and creates a new role: the chief counsel for food, research, and drugs, which will oversee both the FDA chief counsel and the NIH branch of the HHS Office of General Counsel. FDA chief counsel Robert Foster was tapped for the position.

But outside the Office of General Counsel shake-up, neither the FDA nor the NIH has made its RIF plans known.

As of Tuesday, NIH division leaders—one level below institute heads—didn’t know what to expect from the coming RIF order, according to one researcher who insisted on anonymity for fear of professional repercussions. News outlets including Stat News, Science, and Government Executive have reported that the agency plans to eliminate anywhere between 3,400 and 5,000 positions, which would amount to up to one-quarter of the NIH’s workforce.

HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard declines to confirm these numbers or offer additional details in an email to C&EN.

“HHS is following the Administration’s guidance and taking action to support the President’s broader efforts to restructure and streamline the federal government,” Hilliard says in the email. “This is to ensure that HHS better serves the American people at the highest and most efficient standard.”

In the meantime, speculation is mounting. Some NIH staffers say they’ve heard that the RIF is designed around projects, not specific people or teams. Another says she’s heard that the institute is planning to consolidate administrative functions like travel as well as grant management. Already, the NIH has announced plans to centralize peer review.

“Some [staffers] are energized, some panicking, some worn down. Sometimes all on the same day!” the NIH researcher says in a message to C&EN. “Mostly there’s a sense of solidarity and drive to protect the science.”