Trump Radically Overhauls EPA Mission, Scope in First Six Months

Just six months into his second term, President Donald Trump has moved quickly to reshape the Environmental Protection Agency in ways not seen over its 55-year history, drastically restructuring offices, realigning priorities, and reducing staff.

The changes are stunning in their scope and speed, even considering how dramatically Trump transformed the EPA in his first term. As a whole, the moves turn the EPA from an aggressive industrial regulator and muscular enforcer into a smaller, business-friendly agency tasked with delivering on the president’s goals to reduce the federal government’s footprint and drive economic growth.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, the man Trump charged with leading the overhaul, has taken steps that are an “unprecedented assault on EPA, devastating an agency that has saved millions of lives over the last five decades under both Republican and Democratic administrations,” according to David Uhlmann, who headed EPA enforcement under President Joe Biden.

One early sign of the agency’s new direction came on Feb. 4, when Zeldin announced the five core principles that would lead the agency’s work. Three of those—making the US the AI capital of the world, reviving the nation’s auto sector, and boosting domestic energy production—were considered by many EPA veterans as wholly unrelated to the agency’s statutory mission.

Then, on March 12, Zeldin announced “the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen,” unveiling dozens of upcoming changes to EPA air, chemical, and land rules.

Since then, the agency has moved swiftly to implement those changes.

Notably, the EPA could release any day a review of the agency’s 2009 Clean Air Act endangerment finding, potentially revoking a key legal document that provides the basis for regulating six greenhouse gases.

“The Trump administration will not sacrifice national prosperity, energy security, and the freedom of our people for an agenda that throttles our industries, our mobility, and our consumer choice while benefiting adversaries overseas,” Zeldin said in announcing the endangerment finding review.

Workforce Changes

The EPA has also slashed its workforce. Some 3,000 of the agency’s 15,000 employees have reportedly taken early buyout offers, and more reductions could be on the way. Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget calls for a massive 54.5% cut, one of the deepest in the agency’s history.

Environmentalists and their allies in Congress express deep concern that the staff reductions will endanger the environment and human health.

“I understand your view that you can cut half of the agency and it won’t affect people’s health or their water, their air—that, to me, is a big fiction,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told Zeldin in a May 21 hearing. “You could give a rat’s ass about how much cancer your agency causes.”

The Trump administration has been at odds with EPA staff in other ways, too. In March the agency terminated its environmental justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion offices in a bid to end what Zeldin called “forced discrimination programs.”

The changes aren’t lost on the agency’s staff. Earlier this month, 139 employees signed an open letter criticizing the agency’s political leadership for “recklessly undermining the EPA mission.”

The EPA swiftly put those employees on administrative leave, accusing them of “unlawfully undermining, sabotaging, and undercutting the administration’s agenda.”

Restructuring

Zeldin has also dramatically reorganized several of the EPA’s key offices.

On Friday the agency eliminated its research and development office, which provides the scientific rationale for its regulatory, enforcement, and grant funding decisions. The agency had earlier shifted dozens of scientists out of that office and into its air, water, and chemical divisions.

Other organizational changes include the creation of a new Office of State Air Partnerships to work with state and local air permitting agencies, a move consistent with the broad Republican effort to shift power and responsibility down to the states.

Most recently, Zeldin announced changes to the EPA’s compliance division—responsible for working with regulated industry and entities—that the agency said would “deliver economic prosperity and ensure compliance with agency regulations.”

Few details on those changes have been formally disclosed, but a former agency staffer with knowledge of the reorganization said attorneys will be separated from technical staff in the civil enforcement office and some hazardous waste responsibilities will be moved from the Superfund office to the civil enforcement division.

Separately, the EPA has aggressively clawed back billions of dollars in grant funding handed out under the Biden administration for efforts to combat climate change and help communities traditionally overburdened by pollution. Zeldin has repeatedly said the grant programs were riddled by misconduct, conflicts of interest, and potential fraud. Many of those rescissions are now being fought out in the courts.

Weighing Change

Supporters of the effort say the changes are badly needed to restrain an agency that has long overreached.

“These reforms aim to restore balance at the EPA, ending its weaponization against traditional energy technologies vital for the Great American Comeback,” Mandy Gunasekara, who served as EPA chief of staff during Trump’s first term, said in an email.

Similarly, Marty Durbin, senior vice president at the US Chamber of Commerce said in March that EPA’s overhaul “supports a more balanced regulatory approach that will protect the environment and support greater economic growth.”

But in Uhlmann’s view, “no one other than corporate polluters benefits from the destruction at EPA. The air we breathe and the water we drink will be less safe; our cities and town will face greater risks from chemical accidents; and our children and grandchildren will face a more perilous future.”

“It will take years to undo the damage that this administration has done in six short months to EPA and communities across America,” Uhlmann said.