AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We look now at the impact of major cuts by the Trump administration to key federal agencies. Last week began with a Supreme Court order that cleared the way for the mass layoffs at the Education Department, and ended Friday with the Environmental Protection Agency announcing it will eliminate its scientific research arm and begin firing hundreds of chemists, biologists and toxicologists and other scientists, after denying for months it intended to do so. The move has sparked widespread backlash from public health experts and climate advocates who have warned this could lead to the dismantling of protections that shield communities from hazardous chemicals, water contaminants and toxic pollution. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has aggressively gutted the EPA staff and other regulations at President Trump’s behest.

For more, we go to Durham, North Carolina, where we’re joined by Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, a former principal deputy assistant administrator for science at the EPA Office of Research and Development.

We welcome you to Democracy Now! Can you talk about the significance of wiping out your agency, your office within the EPA?

JENNIFER ORME-ZAVALETA: Yeah. Thank you for having me.

So, the Office of Research and Development was part of EPA upon its creation, and the main purpose for the office is to provide science to help inform agency decisions and help to solve environmental problems. It provides essential information on air quality, water quality, the communities where we live, and helping to ensure that they’re safe, and, more importantly, protecting public health.

By eliminating this office, the administration has also proposed the creation of a different science office that would be under the administrator’s office, and moving some staff to the agency’s program offices, the air, water, chemicals office and the Land and Emergency Management Office. But there’s also been encouraging a number of staff to leave through these deferred resignation programs or early retirements. And by doing so, we are losing a treasure trove of historical knowledge, of scientific expertise, and really it’s going to limit what information, what science would be available for the agency to consider in protecting our health and our environment.

AMY GOODMAN: DOGE talks about the restructuring saving the country money, I think something like $748 million. Are they really saving the government money here, or just using this as an excuse to wipe out regulations that have been put in place to protect Americans?

JENNIFER ORME-ZAVALETA: Yeah, no, it’s not going to be saving — saving money. And first off, the $700 million budget exceeds what ORD’s budget is. And if anything, it’s going to be shifting the economic burden, sending it more to communities, to hospitals, to families, in helping to address their healthy needs. It’s really — the cost saving is just a guise. It’s misleading, and it’s going to have consequences for the American taxpayer. People are not going to be protected. So, I’ll leave it there.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you something. The EPA says it will create a new office called the Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions to replace your office’s functions. Could you talk about the significance of this?

JENNIFER ORME-ZAVALETA: Sure. So, right now the Office of Research and Development is a national program office, and it’s to be led by a Senate-confirmed leader, assistant administrator. And those assistant administrators have usually been very well respected, renowned scientists. By moving this office, by eliminating ORD and moving it to the administrator’s office, it will not be led by a Senate-confirmed leader. It will be under the administrator’s office, which opens the door for perhaps greater political oversight. And it’s unclear, really, what the function of this office is going to be, what kind of research, if any, they’ll be conducting, or are they going to be really an in-house contract laboratory that will only do work as requested by the programs within the agency?

AMY GOODMAN: Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, I want to thank for being with us, former principal deputy assistant administrator for science at the EPA Office of Research Development — Research and Development. The EPA has announced it’s shuttering this scientific research arm, with hundreds of scientists expected to be impacted, not to mention the number of people across this country.