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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday it is cutting the size of its workforce by at least 23% through a combination of voluntary retirements and layoffs and is closing its Office of Research and Development.
In January, the EPA had 16,155 employees, and after layoffs and employees opting to take financial incentives to leave or retire, it will have a workforce of 12,448, the agency said. The EPA is also offering a third round of the deferred resignation program that will close on July 25, meaning the agency’s total workforce could further shrink, a spokesperson said.
The EPA did not specify how many of those positions were affected by the elimination of its research office.
The move is in line with President Donald Trump’s promises to reduce the size of government when he took office in January.
“The agency announced today its decision to restructure and eliminate the Office of Research and Development (ORD) to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of EPA operations and align core statutory requirements with its organizational structure,” a spokesperson said in an email.
EPA’s ORD oversees a range of research projects, including health risk assessments of “forever chemicals” like PFAS, investigations into respiratory illness in the rural South, and studies on the spread of Valley fever, a fungal disease exacerbated by climate change and wildfires.
EPA said it would create a new office focused on scientific research called the Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions.
(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler and Matthew Lewis)
