EPA changes under Trump administration
Following president Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulatory power and its broader role within American society have been completely transformed through a medley of executive orders, federal legislation and shifting agency policy.
In undertaking such drastic changes, the Trump administration has worked to ensure the EPA functions in a manner that aligns fully with its platform. Most significant in this platform relative to the role of the EPA include the following: pro-business policies, increased domestic energy production and a disregard for climate action policy.
The primary means for the current shifts in EPA powers and policies is through the agency’s self-regulation. Spearheading these policy shifts within the agency is its new administrator Lee Zeldin. A former New York Congressman hand-selected by Trump for the role, Zeldin has adamantly voiced approval for Trump’s environmental platform and desired deregulation.
On March 12, Zeldin announced the EPA’s launching of the “biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history.” Totaling 31 “historic actions,” Zeldin’s announcement included rollbacks on air standards, restrictions on oil and gas industry site development, reversals of Biden’s climate policies and various other proposed deregulations of federal climate policy.
However, enacting these deregulation proposals in their entirety will prove difficult. Environmental groups have already vowed to challenge the EPA in court over most of the regulation rollbacks. These legal challenges are likely to be compounded on specific rollbacks by some states’ attorney generals, making the process even more difficult for Zeldin to formally enact these proposals.
Outside of deregulation, the impact of the Trump administration is also visible within the EPA’s structure.
To conform to Trump’s desired shrinkage of the federal bureaucracy, the EPA has entered the process of enacting a broad reorganization plan, which it initially announced in May. For most offices, this consists of consolidation with offices working in related fields to form a singular office for a given topic. Through these mergers, the EPA is actively working to comply with Trump’s plans to slash federal spending and put tax dollars to “efficient” use.
Most notable in the process of implementing this reorganization is the dissolution of the EPA’s primary scientific research office, the Office of Research and Development (ORD). While outlined in the May announcement, the ORD’s eradication was formalized in a July press release by the EPA.
The release reaffirmed the plan for the ORD noted in the general reorganization plan: its members would be transferred into EPA program offices where they would focus their expertise and research projects on managing "statutory obligations.”
Seeing that the reorganization process is still being implemented, its effectiveness and subsequent effects on the agency’s regulatory abilities and primary responsibilities are yet to be known.
As a result of such reorganization efforts, the EPA believes that taxpayers are saving approximately $748 million. However, these savings are not solely through reorganization; they are also caused by Trump-induced layoffs of federal workers.
While the exact number of EPA employees impacted by Trump’s mass federal layoff and the erasure of their positions is unknown, it is definitively large-scale. Between January and July of 2025, the total EPA workforce decreased from 16,155 to 12,448 workers thanks to downsizing programs undertaken by the Trump administration.
Furthermore, if the 2026 fiscal budget for the EPA is passed, an additional 1,274 employees will likely lose their jobs, since the agency’s budget will decrease by 54.5% from its 2025 budget.
Cumulatively, this broad slate of changes brought to the EPA thanks to the Trump administration affects every single person in the United States, as we are all impacted by the federal bureaucracy housing the EPA. Nonetheless, the extent to which these changes will impact our individual lives will vary based on geographic location, socioeconomic status, occupation and various other components of our being.
But above all, the impacts will be determined by whether or not the EPA can hold its ground in court, operate effectively with its reorganization and produce the needed output with significantly fewer employees. It is possible that the EPA cannot fulfill all its desired deregulations thanks to a court order, and it is also possible that the EPA revert to its original structure or employee number for efficiency’s sake (712).