FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 26, 2025
CONTACT:
Aaron Bharucha, Communications Associate
(509) 429-1699 and epn-press@environmentalprotectionnetwork.org
Trump Reveals Plans to Cut EPA Staff by 65%, Leaving Public Unprotected from Toxic Pollution
In a cabinet meeting on February 26, 2025, President Trump said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin plans to fire 65% of EPA staff.
“Trump’s dangerous plans to fire thousands of EPA scientists and other public servants takes a wrecking ball to EPA, throwing the doors wide open for corporate polluters to freely dump toxic chemicals in the air we breathe and the water we all drink,” Michelle Roos, Environmental Protection Network’s executive director, said. “A 65% cut would gut the agency and bring EPA to the lowest level of staffing since EPA was created in 1970, when the skies were dark with smog, toxic rivers caught fire, and pollution was a leading cause of premature death.”
The majority of voters in the 2024 presidential election oppose attempts to repeal regulations and cut EPA’s staff and budget. Meaning, this administration’s actions are not only an unlawful overreach of presidential authority, but also contradictory to the interests of the public.
Environmental Protection Network Executive Director Michelle Roos is available to speak to the media.
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Founded in 2017, the Environmental Protection Network harnesses the expertise of more than 600 former EPA career staff and confirmation-level appointees from Democratic and Republican administrations to provide the unique perspective of former scientists and regulators with decades of historical and subject matter knowledge.