Save EPA’s Office of Research and Development

Congress has a chance to save ORD during the appropriations process

By Mayra Reiter, Senior Research and Policy Analyst, Earthjustice Action

In yet another attack on science and public health by the Trump administration, the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced in July that EPA’s Office of Research and Development (ORD) is shutting down. ORD is the scientific arm of the EPA, charged with analyzing the dangers of toxic chemicals, water pollution, drinking water pollutants, smog, and virtually everything the government should investigate if it is truly interested in protecting our families and workers. 

Most staff (as many as 75%) will lose their jobs, remaining employees will be reassigned to other offices — including a newly created Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions within the Office of the Administrator — and several research laboratories will close. 

Dismantling ORD and moving its research and development functions to the program offices and the Office of the Administrator is illegal and threatens the independence of EPA scientists. It will also enable further attacks against public health protections meant to guard Americans against exposure to toxic pollutants like PFAS (“forever chemicals”), lead, mercury, arsenic and more. We need Congress to step in and save ORD before it’s too late.  

We urge Congress to: 

• Preserve the language in the Senate Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Act that protects and restores staffing levels for ORD 

• Remove the House bill language that prohibits the development or use of IRIS assessments 

• Provide appropriations for EPA science and technology for FY2026 at least at the same level as FY2025 ($756,073,000) 

ORD’s role: supporting public health through research and technical assistance 

ORD conducts research in many areas, including studying the health effects of toxic exposures and air pollution on both adults and children, the removal of contaminants from drinking water, environmental quality assessments, and response to environmental disasters.

ORD partners with state, Tribal and local governments, academic institutions, nonprofit groups and other stakeholders to provide technical assistance on issues of local importance. For example, ORD played an important role in addressing PFAS pollution in the Cape Fear River Basin in North Carolina. In 2017, North Carolina State University researchers discovered high levels of PFAS in the Cape Fear watershed that supplies drinking water to the Wilmington area. ORD provided technical assistance to state and local authorities to address the PFAS crisis through monitoring, PFAS removal from drinking water, and remediation. By 2023, PFAS levels in the blood of affected residents had decreased by up to 32%. 

ORD’s national security role 

ORD also supports national security by researching better methods for responding to biological, chemical, or radiological attacks. ORD has advanced the science on how to decontaminate buildings and transit systems after terrorist attacks involving biological agents (e.g. anthrax), chemical substances (e.g. ricin), or radiological materials (e.g. cesium-137) and carries out demonstrations to help train emergency response teams. It has also created a radiological contamination query tool to help emergency planners and responders find and compare cleanup methods.  

Support for technological and economic advancement 

Losing ORD means losing an engine of innovation and diminishing our country’s technological advantage in everything from data modeling to air sensors and chemical screening technology. ORD develops new technologies and shares its research, which can then be built upon by academia and private industry. It also supports local economies: ORD’s main research campus in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina — one of 11 ORD research facilities around the country — employed nearly 600 staff before staffing cuts began. It is part of an EPA complex that employs over 2,000 people and contributes over $260 million to the state’s economy.  

Senate takes first step to save ORD… 

The Senate Committee on Appropriations included language in the Department of the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2026 (S.2431) to prevent the EPA administrator from shutting down ORD. The bill would also reverse the staffing cuts EPA already made, bringing ORD staffing to 2021 levels. This is a huge step in the right direction, and we encourage the Senate to include this language in any final version of the bill. 

 …while House appropriations bill attacks EPA science 

Unfortunately, the House version of the appropriations bill (H.R.4754) does not address the impending closure of ORD. Instead, it inflicts a massive cut of $233.66 million to EPA’s science and technology funding and prohibits the use of appropriated funds to develop, finalize, issue, or use assessments within ORD’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS). The IRIS program develops toxicological assessments of chemicals to understand their health hazards and how different levels of exposure impact human health.  

The prohibition on the development and use of IRIS assessments would be catastrophic for public health safeguards that protect people from toxics. IRIS toxicological assessments provide EPA with the best available science on the health hazards of chemicals and how different levels of exposure impact humans. IRIS assessments are the foundation for many public health protections put in place by EPA and states to protect people, and particularly children, against cancer, respiratory diseases and other conditions that can be caused or aggravated by chemical exposures. They are also the source of key toxicological data for Superfund risk assessments. Without the ability to use IRIS assessments, everything from the regulation of drinking water pollutants to Superfund cleanups will be thrown into disarray. 

Advocating for ORD 

Shortly after the plan to eliminate ORD was announced, our team brought scientists from around the country to Washington, D.C. to advocate in defense of federal science and the preservation of ORD. The fly-in, organized jointly with Union of Concerned Scientists, gave members of Congress the opportunity to hear from experts on the harmful effects of the ORD shut down on scientific progress and public health. 

We also advocated for the Scientific Integrity Act (H.R. 1106), introduced by Rep. Paul Tonko of New York. This legislation would protect the scientific integrity of federal agencies from political interference, and in the face of proposals like the one to cut ORD, this legislation feels more crucial now than ever. 

We saw significant support for ORD in our meetings on the Hill, with many Members of Congress indicating interest in supporting legislation to protect the office. We will continue to build on this momentum with additional outreach to Congress to ensure ORD remains an independent, fully funded entity.

If ORD is eliminated, much of the scientific expertise we’ve come to rely on, as well as millions of dollars in ongoing research, will be gone forever. Moreover, the implications for the future of scientific integrity are dire — allowing the Office of the Administrator to overtake what was once an independent office threatens the independence and ethos of its work. We can’t take the risks associated with allowing ORD to be dismantled.