Will Science Be Stifled at the EPA?

Much science informs regulatory decisions made by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. But almost immediately, the incoming Trump administration was to fire its science advisers. Photo: @EPASoutheast via X.

Issue Backgrounder: Will Science Be Stifled at the EPA?

By Joseph A. Davis

One of the first things the incoming Trump administration did at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was to fire the science advisers.

We can expect similar anti-science policies at other federal science agencies — and the entire Trump 2.0 administration.

 

Federal scientists are already

hunkering down for an onslaught

that will dwarf what they endured

during the first Trump term.

 

The environmental beat has been a prime arena for science denial and censorship for decades. But federal scientists are already hunkering down for an onslaught that will dwarf what they endured during the first term of Donald Trump as president.

That means science at the EPA and environmental journalism share a problem in the new Trump administration: how to keep politics from skewing or hiding the truth.

If Trump 1.0 is any indicator, we can expect Trump 2.0, under EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, to be worse. How should environmental journalists cope?

Ask this: What don’t they want you to know? And why? And who is “they”? Who gains from censorship or disinformation?

 

Trump 1.0 trampled EPA science

A telling incident happened early in Trump 1.0 over the pesticide chlorpyrifos.

After years of study, EPA scientists were recommending that it be pulled from the market, and the Obama EPA was preparing to do so. The chemical, a relative of nerve gas developed in World War I, had been scientifically demonstrated to cause harm to the brains of children.

But the CEO of Dow Chemical, which makes the pesticide, made a $1 million contribution to Trump’s inaugural. Just weeks later, incoming EPA administrator Scott Pruitt reversed EPA’s decision to ban chlorpyrifos.

Associated Press investigative reporter Michael Biesecker put the two facts together and wrote a story about it — essentially exposing the corruption of EPA science by money given to Trump.

The EPA press office then baselessly attacked Biesecker by name. Repeatedly.

 

Whither EPA scientific integrity policy?

In a last-minute gesture of hope, the Biden EPA on Jan. 16 finalized its scientific integrity policy. The EPA had actually been one of the first federal science agencies to have one. And the 2025 policy was tougher than previous iterations.

 

Environmental journalists flag

the scientific integrity policy

as the closest thing the EPA

has to a press policy.

 

Environmental journalists also flag it as the closest thing the EPA has to a press policy. Importantly, it says EPA scientists have a right to talk to reporters about their work without getting permission and without public information officers as minders. Nonetheless, many EPA scientists still say they are not allowed to do so.

There are other reasons why science integrity advocates think the policy is still too weak. The watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility says one of its biggest issues is the lack of a practical enforcement mechanism. They call it “too little too late.”

We don’t know yet what Trump 2.0 will do with the policy.

 

White House ‘leadership’

Trump’s anti-science proclivities go well beyond the EPA. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he held almost daily press conferences, in one of which he suggested treating the disease by injecting bleach. Poison control centers were left to clean up the mess.

Also, there was the 2019 “Sharpiegate” incident, in which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that Hurricane Dorian would impact Florida. Trump mistakenly said it would hit Alabama, too.

When called on the error, Trump doubled down with a NOAA map — which he had visibly altered with his trademark black Sharpie to include Alabama.

That sparked further consternation. Trump doubled down again, having top NOAA officials back him up. Eventually, the National Academy of Public Administration found that acting NOAA Administrator Neil Jacobs twice violated the agency's scientific integrity policy in the flap.

On Feb. 4, Trump named Jacobs to return as head of NOAA.

So scientific flimflammery is a White House thing. As his latest White House chief science adviser, Trump named Michael Kratsios, a returning loyalist and AI maven who has no advanced degree in science or engineering.

 

Why it matters: people’s health

At the EPA, a lot of science goes into the regulatory decisions by which the agency protects the health of people and the environment. In fact, the laws require it. Getting the science wrong kills people.

Industries that the EPA regulates, such as chemical and pesticide makers, spend a lot of time and money lobbying the agency to make its rules less restrictive.

 

Science does get corrupted at the

EPA (even though most employees

are trying to work honestly).

 

Science does get corrupted at the EPA (even though most employees are trying to work honestly). It has happened in both Democratic and Republican administrations.

Prize-winning journalist Sharon Lerner documented in a series of articles, mostly in ProPublica, how chemical safety issues were underplayed or ignored by some EPA officials. They had, in effect, been captured by the industries they oversaw. See, for example, “The Department of Yes.”

Certain chemicals have been in play for a long time. Take formaldehyde. The U.S. National Toxicology Program lists it as a known human carcinogen, and the EPA regulates it, among other ways, as a hazardous air pollutant. One source of exposure is wood products like the particle board commonly used in furniture.

Most recently, the issue has been whether and how the EPA should regulate formaldehyde under the Toxic Substances Control Act. In January 2025, virtually the final days of the Biden administration, the EPA finally released its long-awaited risk evaluation report on formaldehyde under TSCA. It set the chemical up for further, tighter regulation.

But don’t hold your breath for much of that under the Trump 2.0 EPA. Industry has objected to the science.

There are thousands more chemicals worth worrying about. There are some 15,000 members of the fluorinated polymer family known as PFAS (“forever chemicals” in headline jargon). Industry is arguing about the threats they present as well.

Some Trump allies are even complaining about the Biden EPA mandate to replace lead water pipes, such as those in Flint, Michigan.

 

Things to watch for

Reporters interested in science will want to watch for who Trump appoints as assistant administrator for the EPA Office of Research and Development. They fund, perform and oversee most science done by or for the EPA.

If this subject interests you, it would be smart to learn about the EPA’s sprawling network of science labs — such as the one near Detroit that tests auto emissions. There are more than a dozen, spread out over the United States (good for local stories!).

We would say watch the EPA’s Office of Inspector General — except that Trump almost immediately fired the EPA’s IG, along with those of at least 17 other agencies. Current practice is for the EPA’s IG to note on its web page what investigations have been started and what reports have been published. Will that continue?

And when (we don't yet say if) Trump appoints a new IG at the EPA and other agencies, watch who he appoints and whether they are truly independent.

Also: Some of the science advisory boards are required by law and so we’d like to think new members will be appointed. Take a look at the political leanings of new appointees.

And watch the watchdog and whistleblower groups like PEER. They are like bird dogs when it comes to EPA science stories.

[Editor's Note: For more on this topic, see our EJ TransitionWatch column on GOP threats to scientific integrity at the EPA and prospects for the disappearance of environment data under the Trump administration, as well as WatchDog Opinion columns on a call for better press office openness and on how the agency's scientific integrity policy affects reporters' access to expert interviews.]

Joseph A. Davis is a freelance writer/editor in Washington, D.C. who has been writing about the environment since 1976. He writes SEJournal Online's TipSheet, Reporter's Toolbox and Issue Backgrounder, and curates SEJ's weekday news headlines service EJToday and @EJTodayNews. Davis also directs SEJ's Freedom of Information Project and writes the WatchDog opinion column.

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* From the weekly news magazine SEJournal Online, Vol. 10, No. 10. Content from each new issue of SEJournal Online is available to the public via the SEJournal Online main page. Subscribe to the e-newsletter here. And see past issues of the SEJournal archived here.