WASHINGTON, DC (March 28, 2025) — Yesterday, Congresswoman Valerie Foushee (NC-04) and Congressman Greg Landsman (OH-01) sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency demanding the immediate reversal of plans to cut the EPA's Office of Research and Development.
On March 17, the New York Times reported that the Trump Administration was considering firing 75 percent of the Office of Research and Development’s (ORD) staff. North Carolina’s Fourth District is home to the EPA’s Research Triangle Park campus, the largest in the country, where more than 2,000 full-time federal employees are at the forefront of the EPA’s critical work to ensure proper research and regulations are in place to deliver clean air, water, and land for all Americans.
The lawmakers’ letter reads, in part:
“Firing nearly 1,200 dedicated ORD public servants across the country would decimate the scientific backbone of EPA which provides independent, objective, and unparallelled research that informs Agency assessments and decision-making…
“Firing the majority of ORD employees would be particularly harmful to EPA’s work to address industrial pollution, contaminated air and drinking water, environmental health, and worsening natural disasters – and would especially hamper responses to emergencies such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Flint Michigan water crisis, and the California wildfires.
“Dismantling ORD’s ability to fulfill its duties would jeopardize decades of progress in protecting public health and the environment. This includes everything from understanding and addressing the environmental causes of asthma in children and the long-term effects of exposure to lead pipes and paint in the home, to reducing the presence of forever chemicals in drinking water.
“As such, we demand the immediate reversal of any plan, and the cessation of any activities, that would result in the mass firing of ORD employees or the dismantling of ORD as a whole.”
The full text of the letter can be found here.