By Will Atwater
Five weeks into the second Trump Administration, and the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency continues to do what it calls restoring accountability of government by taking a buzz-saw approach to what it calls government waste.
Critics warn that the administration’s actions risk destabilizing multiple federal agencies, including two — the Environmental Protection Agency and National Institutes of Health — that Americans rely on to protect them against viral and environmental threats such as bird flu and climate change.
Both organizations have a strong presence in North Carolina. Of NIH’s 27 institutes, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences is one of only four outside the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, with more than 1,000 local workers. The U.S. EPA’s facility in Research Triangle Park houses 15 offices, with 2,000-some workers in research laboratories and offices that monitor air, climate and energy.
Last month, the Trump Administration targeted the Environmental Protection Agency for staff layoffs. The administration announced plans to shrink the agency’s budget by 65 percent, not the staff, which was what was originally reported. However, some argue that a cut this large will severely weaken the agency.
“A 65 percent cut would gut the agency and bring EPA to the lowest level of staffing since EPA was created in 1970, when the skies were dark with smog, toxic rivers caught fire, and pollution was a leading cause of premature death,’’ said Michelle Roos, head of the Environmental Protection Network, an organization consisting of former EPA officials, in a statement.
Local impact
Linda Birnbaum was the director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, also located in Research Triangle Park, from 2009 to 2019. Birnbaum reflected back on her time at the agency to provide an idea of how budget cuts could affect the local economy.
“In the mid-2015 to 2019 time window, our guesstimate of how many dollars NIEHS alone put into the local RTP economy […] is that we’re looking at half a billion dollars a year.” The agency had about 700 federal employees and about 700 contractors during that period, Birnbaum said. Now, she estimates the current impact could be twice as much.
NIEHS data shows that from fiscal year 2018 to 2022, the organization’s funding increased from $794 million to $842 million. However, budget amounts for this period may not reflect additional items such as the appropriation for the Superfund program, for instance. During that five years, the agency had 629 full-time employees and more than 1,000 additional research personnel.
EPA and NIEHS have also hired countless graduates from nearby universities and collaborated on research projects, giving students in the sciences valuable work experience.
Sally Darney, former EPA researcher and editor-in-chief of Environmental Health Perspectives, an NIEHS-supported publication, noted that other institutions in Research Triangle Park that perform collaborative research with the two institutions will also have fewer opportunities to hire graduates of North Carolina colleges and universities.
“We’ll lose our best and brightest who want to stay and build a strong North Carolina, but can’t find a job,” Darney said.
“Federal investments in university biomedical research contribute mightily to North Carolina’s economy and quality of life, funding life-saving discoveries and supporting thousands of jobs,” said UNC System President Peter Hans, last month in a news release.
Added to cuts to indirect costs for research universities, Birnbaum said that all of this could add up to fewer knowledge workers coming to North Carolina and staying here.
The losses to North Carolina go beyond workers.
“Nationally, EPA gives about $1.1 billion in grant support for state environmental work, and this is critical, because most of the day-to-day operations and environmental protection for permitting and enforcement and monitoring are done by state and local governments in cooperation with EPA,” said Stan Meiburg, executive director of the Andrew Sabin Family Center for Environment and Sustainability and former acting deputy administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency. “Any cuts to those grant fundings will significantly harm the ability of state programs, let alone EPA, to carry out the activities required by the nation’s environmental laws.”
Darney said the staff and budget cuts stretch the capacity of the remaining staff.
“If you can’t rehire people, and people leave, then [those] remaining get overworked and discouraged and they may not do as good a job. It’s a much better strategy to reform and redefine priorities and take it from there,” Darney noted.
Energy dominance?
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin says he’s on a crusade to remake the agency into an image that resembles nothing like what it did during the Biden administration. In doing so, he’s erasing traces of Biden-era quests such as clean energy and environmental justice.
The agency has rolled out its Great American Comeback Initiative, which consists of five pillars. The first pillar offers a nod to the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act by stating a commitment to “Clean Air, Land, and Water for Every American,’’ while the second pillar speaks of “Restor[ing] American Energy Dominance.”
“Pursuing energy independence and energy dominance will cut energy costs for everyday Americans who are simply trying to heat their homes and put gas in their cars,” Zeldin said about the agency’s new energy focus.
However, not everyone agrees.
“They’re acting to eviscerate protections for clean water and air, deepen U.S. dependence on the fossil fuels driving the climate crisis; and set back a thriving clean energy industry that’s creating jobs, cutting costs for consumers and making the country more energy secure,” said Manish Bapna, president and chief executive officer of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Facing an uncertain future
The Trump administration’s staffing and budget cuts to federal agencies threaten public health research and the regulatory enforcement needed to protect the environment, critics warn.
“This isn’t about saving money. Trump’s call to slash EPA funding 65 percent would leave families and communities exposed to toxic chemicals, polluted air and contaminated waters and lands, while shaving federal spending by just one-tenth of a penny on the dollar,” Bapna said.
The budget cuts could result in tens of thousands of former government employees competing for jobs with skill sets that may not translate as readily in the private sector, especially as the market tightens under the weight of economic uncertainty.
It’s not clear how a 65 percent budget cut will affect staffing numbers across the agency. However, in February, WUNC reported that 30 probationary employees at EPA’s RTP campus who worked in the Office of Research and Development were fired.
N.C. State University economics professor Steven Allen said that unlike “accountants, data analysts or computer experts,” EPA researchers may have a hard time finding other employment.
“There’s not a lot of corporate research going on in the health area,” Allen said. “Most of that’s been passed on to the federal government and the universities. I’m not seeing Merck picking up a lot of people that previously were getting NIH money from some other organization. Same for the EPA [employees].”
Losing grants to preserve the environment
The Southern Environmental Law Center, which provides legal support to environmental causes across six Southern states, released information detailing how efforts to claw back funding previously allocated for environment projects could affect North Carolina.
“The administration has [..] called into question the largest multistate grant award in EPA’s history,” the center published on its website. The grant in question is a “$421 million effort covering North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland [to] restore coastal wetlands and bottomland forests, improve water quality, and reduce risks of floods, fire, and heat.”
Part of the funding, now at risk, “was on track to restore over 600 acres of coastal habitats, reforest over 55,000 acres, plant 1,200 urban trees, and permanently add 3,300 acres to the North Carolina State Park System,” according to the center.
While the assault on federal agencies is occuring at a breakneck pace, Hope Taylor, executive director of Clean Water for North Carolina, an environmental advocacy group, said now is not the time to give up.
“It’s going to take grassroots citizen involvement,” Taylor said. “There’s no question about it, and that’s going to be true on the whole range of issues on which this administration is acting.”
Meiburg said we’re treading in uncharted territory.
“I worked at EPA for 39 years, and witnessed changes that occurred between the Carter and Reagan administration, between the Clinton and Bush administrations, between the Bush and the Obama administration, between the Obama and the first Trump administration,” Meiburg said. “I have lived through a lot of changes, and it would be important to say that this is not normal. This is something radically different from what we’ve seen before.”
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