FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Contact:
Kyla Bennett (508) 230-9933 [email protected]
En Masse Departure of EPA’s Top Scientists
World’s Leading Scientists Departing Public Service This Month
Washington, DC — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is experiencing a mass exodus of some of its most valuable scientists, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). EPA plans to end its focus on basic scientific research, thereby prompting some of its top experts in fields such as lead poisoning, wildfire smoke pollution, and long-term chemical exposure to leave the agency effective September 20th.
This unprecedented collective departure is tied to the federal government’s Title 42 program. Title 42 is a special federal hiring authority which gives EPA and other federal agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health, Center for Disease Control, and Food and Drug Administration, the ability to bring world-renowned scientists and engineers from academia and private industry to work in government agencies.
At EPA, these world-class experts are critical to addressing the nation’s most pressing environmental and human health challenges. Among other issues, the departing experts are leading efforts to –
- Understand how exposure to wildfire smoke affects public health, especially damage to the heart and blood vessels;
- Grasp the role that genetics plays in the development of adverse health impacts from environmental exposures (i.e., why some people are more vulnerable than others); and
- Assess how lead leaches into our drinking water from America’s aging water infrastructure.
Many of EPA’s current Title 42 scientists are said to be leaving government service to work at Underwriters Laboratories, a science center that ensures the safety of products for the public.
“EPA is gratuitously gutting its scientific capacity to handle a host of critical public health and environmental challenges,” stated PEER Science Policy Director Kyla Bennett, a scientist and attorney formerly with EPA, pointing to the fact that EPA is eliminating its Office of Research and Development, displacing an estimated 1,100 scientists or two-thirds of its researchers . “We are witnessing a politically driven destruction of the federal government’s scientific capacity.”
This major scientific contraction is driven by Trump EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s explicitly stated goal to limit research to applied scientific explorations only in areas where the agency has a specific legal mandate. This approach is somewhat myopic given EPA’s broad duty to protect public health and the environment combined with the complexities of threats we face daily. For example, emergency responders need to know much more than they currently do about the chemicals spilled in industrial accidents, local officials still have little idea how to prevent toxic algal blooms, and the science of workplace chemical exposure is in its infancy. Yet, none of these or a host of other challenges spring from a specific legal mandate.
As of today, neither the House nor the Senate continuing appropriations bills authorize the continuation of the Title 42 program.
“Dismantling a world class collection of scientific talent carefully recruited over decades is perverse beyond reason,” Bennett added. “The Trump disregard for expertise, particularly scientific expertise, constitutes a profound public disservice.”
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Look at EPA’s Title 42 program
Examine impending closure of EPA research arm
See sharp drop in EPA science experimentation
PEER protects public employees who protect our environment. We are a service organization for environmental and public health professionals, land managers, scientists, enforcement officers and other civil servants dedicated to upholding environmental laws and values. We work with current and former federal, state, local and tribal employees.
