The Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator, Lee Zeldin, announced the agency was “shifting its scientific expertise.”
The Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday that it would disperse scientists from its independent research office to other divisions where they among other things will be tasked with approving the use of new chemicals.
Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the changes to the E.P.A. in a video, saying the agency was “shifting its scientific expertise” to focus on issues he described as “mission essential.”
Most of the immediate changes will affect the Office of Research and Development, the E.P.A.’s main research arm that conducts studies on things like the health and environmental risks of “forever chemicals” in drinking water and the best way to reduce fine particle pollution in the atmosphere.
An internal document previously reviewed by The New York Times outlined the Trump administration’s recommendation to eliminate that office, with plans to fire as many as 1,155 chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists working on health and environmental research.
That didn’t happen on Friday, but the agency’s new priorities were made clear: One hundred and thirty jobs will be moved to an office at the agency tasked with approving new chemicals for use, Mr. Zeldin said. Chemicals industry groups have long complained of a backlog in approvals, which they say is stifling innovation.
At an all-hands staff meeting late Friday, Nancy Beck, a former lobbyist at the American Chemistry Council who now heads the E.P.A.’s chemicals office, told stunned scientists that it was “a very exciting time.”