"Agency shaken up by staff cuts, deregulation, reorganization. EPA says changes are needed to spur economic growth."
"Just six months into his second term, President Donald Trump has moved quickly to reshape the Environmental Protection Agency in ways not seen over its 55-year history, drastically restructuring offices, realigning priorities, and reducing staff.
The changes are stunning in their scope and speed, even considering how dramatically Trump transformed the EPA in his first term. As a whole, the moves turn the EPA from an aggressive industrial regulator and muscular enforcer into a smaller, business-friendly agency tasked with delivering on the president’s goals to reduce the federal government’s footprint and drive economic growth.
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, the man Trump charged with leading the overhaul, has taken steps that are an “unprecedented assault on EPA, devastating an agency that has saved millions of lives over the last five decades under both Republican and Democratic administrations,” according to David Uhlmann, who headed EPA enforcement under President Joe Biden.
One early sign of the agency’s new direction came on Feb. 4, when Zeldin announced the five core principles that would lead the agency’s work. Three of those—making the US the AI capital of the world, reviving the nation’s auto sector, and boosting domestic energy production—were considered by many EPA veterans as wholly unrelated to the agency’s statutory mission."
Stephen Lee reports for Bloomberg Environment July 21, 2025.
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