EPA To Shut Down Scientific Research Arm

FLORA LICHTMAN: This is Science Friday. I’m Flora Lichtman. Later in the hour, the Parker Solar Probe just took the closest snapshots of the Sun ever. Plus, an ancient reptile with a mysterious crest on its back has scientists scratching their heads.

But first, last week, the EPA announced it’s shuttering the agency’s scientific research arm, the Office of Research and Development, a.k.a. ORD. Since the agency was founded nearly 55 years ago, it’s always had in-house scientists researching things like pollutants in our air and water and the safety of chemicals that we’re all exposed to. That research is used to inform the EPA’s guidelines and standards.

Now the agency is dissolving that office. Here to discuss is Dr. Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta. She spent more than 40 years at the EPA. When she retired in 2021, she was a senior research leader in the Office of Research and Development. Jennifer, welcome to Science Friday.

JENNIFER ORME-ZAVALETA: Hi, Flora. Thank you.

FLORA LICHTMAN: OK, so give us an example of what this office does in real life. Are there cases you remember researching that gives us an idea of what the Office of Research and Development does?

JENNIFER ORME-ZAVALETA: So the Office of Research and Development, as you said earlier, is really there to help provide the science and information to inform agency decisions, but it also helps to solve environmental problems. Over its 55-year history, there’s been research on lead. There’s been research on drinking water contaminants, whether they’re microorganisms or understanding, as you mentioned, what kinds of chemicals are out there, what we’re exposed to, and what would be safe limits for those exposures.

ORD also provided a whole lot of technical assistance to states, to tribes, and to communities around the country, helping them with understanding if they had issues with water infrastructure, lead pipes. We provided a lot of assistance to Flint, Michigan, for example. We also have helped communities in learning how to manage stormwater or with the wildfire smokes and how to help our environment and our people recover from those kinds of threats.

FLORA LICHTMAN: During your time at ORD, what were some of the most important research done? Can you give me a specific example of something that you felt like was really critical that the office studied or found out?

JENNIFER ORME-ZAVALETA: Sure. One of the really standouts of research was around air pollution. And they would look at different kinds of air pollutants, whether it was ozone or particulate matter, which is a soot that would come out of, for example, a tailpipe of your car or a smokestack, and even more recently, looking at wildfire smoke.

And through their research, they were able to better understand how inhaling that pollution in your air affected your body. And they were able to use that information to develop regulations, which have been shown to have remarkable benefits in improving the quality of life and extending people’s lives.

FLORA LICHTMAN: How does that practically affect people’s lives? Give me an example of how life will be different without this.

JENNIFER ORME-ZAVALETA: Life will be different because there will be less information made available to the public. The public will be caught unaware of what they might be exposed to, what might cause harm to their health from their activities. And not having that information, one might think that what you don’t know won’t hurt you, but we’ve all learned that what you don’t know can possibly hurt you. And we would much rather have a public that’s aware of what’s out there, so they can make smart choices that help protect their health and help protect their welfare.

FLORA LICHTMAN: The administration says that they will replace ORD with a new office called the Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions. How is this different from ORD?

JENNIFER ORME-ZAVALETA: It’s unclear yet because we’re still not sure exactly what this new office is going to do. It’s an office that will be housed under the larger office of the administrator. It won’t be a standalone, independent office.

It’s unclear if that office will be conducting research and will have some of that forward-looking capability. Or will they only do work when requested by a particular program office, such as, in our office, saying, gee, could you please develop a new air method for us for pollutant X?

So we really don’t know yet what they’ll be asked to do. And we don’t even really what kind of expertise will be housed in this new office. So, much remains to be seen at this point.

FLORA LICHTMAN: What does it mean that it would be under an administrator?

JENNIFER ORME-ZAVALETA: The administrator’s office usually has functions like the policy office and the Congressional Affairs Office, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. So a variety of different functions, none of which included research. And so it’s really unusual that you would see something like this that would be placed under an administrator’s office.

FLORA LICHTMAN: EPA officials have said that, in part, that the savings they get from cutting research will be used to mitigate, to take action on problems that we already know about, like cleaning Superfund sites up. Is there any logic to this plan?

JENNIFER ORME-ZAVALETA: Well, not the kind of logic that I follow. I mean, taking some staff from ORD and distributing them to the program offices, I think, won’t achieve the goals that the administration has been looking for. They want increased efficiencies and cost savings, but I think they’re going to find that they will only add redundancies. It’ll be greater costs because of that duplication of effort.

And you’re going to lack a lot of coordination. It will be unclear how well any work, if it’s research, done in the Superfund office, will be coordinated with any work that might be done under the water office or the chemicals office or the air office. So, again, it remains to be seen, but I just feel like these changes aren’t going to benefit the American public.

FLORA LICHTMAN: I think some people might wonder, why does this kind of science need to be done by the government? You could rely on university scientists or independent labs to do this kind of research. Why do you think it’s important that it’s a government office?

JENNIFER ORME-ZAVALETA: Well, so keep in mind that ORd doesn’t work in a vacuum. And when Congress appropriates resources to support research, ORD partners with a number of groups, including universities, including industry. Without ORD and without those funds, I think universities are already finding that much of their funding is being cut. They won’t be there to be able to pick up the slack of an absent ORD.

And there’s also been speculation that, well, private industry, the private sector can pick up this work. It’s going to be unclear if the work that they do is really going to benefit the American public because, often, private interests are working for the benefit of their shareholders and for their product and their bottom line.

FLORA LICHTMAN: As we know. You worked under many presidents, including under President Trump during his first term. Are you surprised by what you’re seeing right now?

JENNIFER ORME-ZAVALETA: I am surprised. I just feel awful about what is happening to civil service and what’s happening not only to EPA, but across the country. When we change an administration, we’ve come to expect that there will be changing priorities. But this round, the focus has been attacking the people, the people who do the work, the people who want to serve the public and that will help make things happen.

And by attacking them, it has really– it’s ground a lot of research completely to a halt. And the American people are not benefiting from their tax dollars being spent to conduct research because people aren’t there to do that.

FLORA LICHTMAN: And you spent 40 years at the EPA, I imagine, almost your entire career. What is it like for you personally to see it dismantled in this way?

JENNIFER ORME-ZAVALETA: Oh, it’s very sad. One thing that’s really been a powerful motivator is the mission of the agency. And I grew up outside of Cleveland in the ’60s and ’70s. And Cleveland had a very polluted environment during that time, as did much of the country, where you would have smoggy haze hanging over cities. You’d have chemical drums that were dumped in open landfills. You’d have a lot of discharge of things into waterways.

And we’ve heard about the story of the Cuyahoga River catching on fire. It actually caught on fire many times. And there were a lot of steel mills in Cleveland at the time, as was Pittsburgh. And there would be so much emissions coming out of the stacks that the street lights would come on at noontime.

So that really energized an environmental revolution in the late ’60s and ’70s that led President Nixon to establishing EPA. And EPA’s mission was to protect public health and the environment. And so all of those things really were motivators for me to move into environmental sciences and to work for EPA.

I feel like so much has been gained after its 55-year history. And it really is that mission that draws many people to the agency, that keeps people at the agency, because you feel the work you’re doing is having a direct benefit on the American public, and it’s improving the quality of our lives and our children’s lives, our grandchildren’s lives and future generations.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Is there anything else you’d like the public to know?

JENNIFER ORME-ZAVALETA: I think if people– I think as we look at what I just described from the ’70s to what we have now, I think there’s been a realm of complacency that has built up. People are taking for granted that they can have clean air to breathe, that they have safe communities to live in, that they can enjoy going out onto a waterway and catching fish and being able to eat that fish or to go swim in the water.

So people have really taken that almost for granted. And I’m worried that with some of these changes, we run the risk of sliding backwards. We’re not going to see these changes happen overnight. They will take some time. But it will take even longer to try to correct the course. And so, I think back to a Joni Mitchell song. And for the American public, I’ll leave you with this. “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”

FLORA LICHTMAN: Jennifer, thank you for joining me today.

JENNIFER ORME-ZAVALETA: Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

FLORA LICHTMAN: Dr. Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta is the former Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator for the EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

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