How an end to the EPA science office could impact Houston’s environmental health work

When Hurricane Harvey’s heavy rains spread industrial chemicals throughout Houston in 2017 and filled parts of the city with clouds of toxic gas, researchers from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency were there. 

The EPA’s Office of Research and Development, now on the chopping block as new EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin promises to shrink the agency’s budget by 65%, is often called in to help with major disasters. Harvey was no exception. 

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“When there is an emergency, there's a lot of technical expertise in ORD that is mobilized to help deal with the cleanup and the long term recovery,” said Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, a career scientist who served as acting head of the office during President Donald Trump’s first term. 

In the days following Harvey, the office brought its scientific expertise to the table, working with several other EPA branches and state officials to assess drinking water, test air pollution and monitor for hazardous materials.

The federal agency sent 263 people to respond to the crisis. While limitations in the scope of their testing faced criticism after the storm from many who wanted to see even more, Orme-Zavaleta said the possibly-imminent nixing of the agency’s scientific research arm could hamper the types of recovery efforts that are possible today. 

The Office of Research and Development has not yet been eliminated, officially. A plan to lay off most of its employees and reassign the rest was first reported by the New York Times last week, before the office’s own staff were aware of it. It is the largest structural change publicized since the White House touted Zeldin’s commitment to cut 65% of the agency’s spending in a cabinet meeting in February. 

“While no decisions have been made yet, we are actively listening to employees at all levels to gather ideas on how to better fulfill agency statutory obligations, increase efficiency, and ensure the EPA is as up-to-date and effective as ever,” a regional EPA spokesman said in response to several questions about how Houston could be impacted by the changes.

Though much of the plan is still unclear, Jeremy Symons — who worked as a climate policy advisor at the EPA until 2001 — said even without details, the shifts are telling a clear story. 

“We don't know all the specifics,” Symons said. “But every announcement or piece of information that comes out points in the same direction, which is that Zeldin is taking a wrecking ball to EPA.”

Pollution assessments beyond hurricane season

The EPA’s Office of Research and Development directly employs over 1,500 people and runs 10 national laboratories across the country. While they are most visible during a disaster, researchers conduct independent studies on air and water quality, chemical safety, toxic waste, homeland security and health risk assessments throughout the year that inform policy.

Some researchers from the office, for instance, develop risk assessments that inform the national ambient air quality standards for pollutants like ozone and particulate matter that harm Houstonians. By law, these standards have to be updated every five years.

“I don’t know who does that five-year NAAQS review, without that science arm,” said Adrian Shelley, the Texas director of environmental nonprofit Public Citizen. Shelley said that because of the agency’s cost-benefit analyses, the results of those reviews already yield standards that allow more pollution than groups like the American Lung Association say are healthy.

“The long-term concern is, you’ve lost that institutional knowledge, you’ve lost career people, you’ve lost a repository of science,” Shelley said.

Ranking risks from environmental toxins

A subset of the Office of Research and Development is focused on determining and cataloguing proven human health risks for toxic chemicals. These are organized in the EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS, which is a key source for the agency’s regulatory decision-making.

Project 2025, the conservative roadmap for Trump’s second term that the president once called partially “ridiculous,” hones in on key criticisms of the Environmental Protection Agency which are increasingly reflected in Zeldin’s early decisions.

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“Several Office of Research and Development offices and programs, many of which constitute unaccountable efforts to use scientific determinations to drive regulatory, enforcement, and legal decisions, should be eliminated. The Integrated Risk Information System, for example,” wrote Mandy M. Gunasekara, the Republican climate and energy strategist who authored a chapter on the agency. 

Gunasekara said the “unaccountable program” had failed to implement reforms in the face of pushback from Congress and others, and “often sets ‘safe levels’ based on questionable science and below background levels, resulting in billions in economic costs.”

The agency describes its research process for IRIS entries online. It includes independent scientific analysis, external peer review, interagency discussion and open public comment prior to a change.

Houston impacts of future EPA cuts unclear

Houston is saturated with industrial facilities and sites with legacy contamination. This creates many touch points between its local governments, companies, communities and the EPA. The agency reviews permits for major polluters, oversees cleanup for contaminated Superfund sites and funds local environmental health efforts.

However, while the EPA and its scientists set federal environmental standards, in many instances the state equivalent — the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality — is the one carrying them out. 

Even in cases where the EPA’s Dallas-based regional office has a direct presence in the area, like with its Houston-based regional scientific laboratory, it is still unclear how changes to federal staff will impact regional dynamics. The Office of Research and Development is the national program manager for the Houston-based lab, but its operations fall under regional administrator Scott Mason IV. 

The EPA’s regional press office did not specifically respond to a question about outcomes for the laboratory, and no plans have been leaked. Still, former ORD leader Orme-Zavaleta said additional downsizing steps are surely coming down the pike. 

“One thing to note is that ORD resources are about 10% of the agency’s, and if (Zeldin’s) goal is really 65% then that means that there's another 55% of reductions yet to be communicated,” Orme-Zavaleta said. 

Meanwhile, the agency’s proposal to cut that 10% is facing public pushback in Congress. 

Zoe Lofgren, the top Democrat on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, said in a statement that “EPA’s Office of Research and Development is in statute. Eliminating it is illegal.”

Lofgren added that without the office, the “EPA cannot meet its legal obligation to use the best available science.”

Her Republican counterparts on the committee have declined to speak publicly about the leaked plan. 

But the decision seems in line with other recent agency actions taken by Zeldin, including a slew of rollbacks to environmental health rules which he labeled as the “biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history” designed to “unleash American energy, lower costs for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, and work hand-in-hand with our state partners.”