Energy & Environment

EPA tells some scientific research staffers to relocate

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by Rachel Frazin - 04/10/26 6:11 PM ET

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by Rachel Frazin - 04/10/26 6:11 PM ET

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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is making some of its staffers relocate and reassigning an even larger share of employees as part of its efforts to reorganize its scientific research.

The agency is reassigning a total of 124 staffers, 35 of whom are being asked to relocate.

The move comes as the Trump administration seeks to eliminate its Office of Research and Development and instead conduct scientific research in a new office housed within the office of the administrator.

An EPA spokesperson said via email Thursday that as part of the restructure, the agency “has issued reassignment notices to those employees who remain in the Office of Research and Development.”

The spokesperson said that the restructuring includes “integration of scientific expertise” into its other offices.

A union representing many EPA employees criticized the relocation and reassignment notices, saying the relocation in particular could cause some staffers to leave the agency and hamper its ability to conduct scientific research.

“It’s a pretty high likelihood that many of these people will just choose not to relocate and then have their jobs terminated,” said Justin Chen, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238.

He said the union’s understanding is that recipients of reassignment or relocation notices were largely at Research Triangle Park in North Carolina, but people in Washington, D.C., as well as Cincinnati and some other offices, have been impacted.

“These are highly trained scientists, engineers and other employees of that nature,” he said, adding that losing these staffers or interrupting their research would mean “you’re basically losing the continuity of the kind of public health research that these people have been conducting over the course of years.”

Chen also said the moves could make it harder for a future administration to put the Office of Research and Development back together.

“This administration is very clearly trying to scuttle any form of public health research because they think that by blinding the public from understanding … what their exposure is to — that basically frees up the corporate donors for this administration, essentially, to do whatever they want,” he said.

On the other hand, the EPA spokesperson argued that the reorganization seeks to ensure that “rigorous, evidence-based science will continue to guide every decision made at the agency.”

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