President Trump and Elon Musk are clearing the way in federal courts to push thousands of government workers out of their jobs. Federal natural resource agencies — EPA, USDA, NOAA, Interior, Fish and Wildlife, Park Service, Land Management — are targets with unknown consequences for water quality, water supply, and the nation’s environment.
The new administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, seeks to claw back $20 billion approved by the Biden administration and Congress to provide low-income communities with off-grid renewable energy and other ecologically sensitive infrastructure that would avoid 40 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually.
The president is trying to roll back funding in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act that stimulated purchases of electric vehicles.
The administration is evaluating federal funding to the farm sector for woke influences. Nearly $11 billion in government payments for conservation are frozen, awaiting direction from the White House.
Project 2025, the playbook behind the administration’s actions, calls for drastic reductions in budgets for the nation’s science agencies, a plan the White House is activating.
The National Science Foundation is anticipating steep cuts in its budget that could push a quarter to half of the agency’s staff out of their jobs.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the nation’s weather service, could also lose half of its 12,000-member staff.