Sometimes these regular musings write themselves. This is one of those.
What follows is mostly excerpts from something I bet most of you have never read: the text of a Senate Committee on Appropriations bill. The language included in the report reflects a stunning rebuke of the EPA plan to dismantle its basic research arm, the Office of Research and Development (ORD). ORD has done much of the public service research that is the basis of standards that have delivered cleaner air and water across this country.
Remember for a minute that the Senate Committee on Appropriations is chaired by and is majority Republican. This report was almost unanimously supported by the bipartisan membership of the committee. In these times, that is striking.
This quote comes verbatim from the report:
“Office of Research and Development.—The Committee notes that EPA has a long and proud tradition of being one of the world’s leading environmental and human health research organizations. The Office of Research and Development [ORD] conducts cutting-edge research to better understand and mitigate harm to humans and the environment from contamination from natural and human-made disasters, radiation exposure, wildfire smoke emissions, chemical releases, drinking water contamination, chemicals in everyday products, and other threats. For example ORD’s foundational research on PFAS chemicals exposed profound risks to human health and spurred bipartisan funding to address the impacts of PFAS on drinking water, bans on certain PFAS chemicals, and further research.
“The Committee is appalled that the Agency has announced the imminent closure of ORD, which would result in the further loss of biologists, chemists, engineers, ecologists, and other expert scientists numbering in the thousands and the closure of world-class laboratories and research centers. The Agency has touted savings of $748,800,000 in direct Federal spending, but fails to acknowledge the immeasurable risk to our health and environment that would come from undermining EPA’s ability to clean up hazardous chemicals, respond to disasters, and support states and Tribal Nations with sound, actionable science. The Committee notes that the Agency did not include a proposal to close ORD in the fiscal year 2026 budget request nor amended the budget request to that end nor did the Agency submit the reorganization to the Committee as required by the reprogramming guidance pursuant to section 422 of Public Law 118–42 and continued under the terms and conditions of Public Law 119–4. The Committee directs the Agency to immediately halt all actions related to the closure, reduction, reorganization, or other similar such changes to ORD and the EPA scientific workforce and instead, if the administration continues to wish to pursue this change, include any such changes within the President’s budget request for fiscal year 2027 as a proposal for the Committee to make a decision on in a final funding bill for that year.” [page 91]
“The Committee is frustrated with how EPA has decided to not have a working relationship with the Committee and to disregard Congressional directives related to staffing and funding. The Committee will consider targeted increases to funding for the Offices if the Offices can demonstrate that it takes its relationship with the Committee seriously.” [page 90].
The members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, never to be mistaken as rabid environmentalists nor great friends to EPA, recognize that the retreat from basic science is incongruous with the lip service this administration gives to a commitment to clean air and clean water. The committee is calling out the administration, rightly so, and is placing its money where its mouth is by providing less draconian cuts to funding for EPA.
Both the House and Senate appropriators have provided more money to preserve some of EPA’s basic functions at levels that exceed those proposed by the administration. That is a little glimmer of hope in an otherwise frontal assault on the basic underpinnings of environmental protection in America.
While not objectively good news, because no matter whose budget is adopted environmental protections will be diminished, it’s less bad than the news we have become accustomed to. And today anyway, I’ll take that.
