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Eliminating EPA Office of Research and Development Would Harm Public Health and the Environment
Statement by Chitra Kumar, Climate and Energy Program managing director
The potential elimination of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Research and Development, reported by news outlets, would take a huge toll on public health and be a massive giveaway to polluting industries, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). These destructive actions are reportedly part of the Trump administration’s mass layoff strategy.
Below is a statement by Chitra Kumar, the managing director of the Climate and Energy Program at UCS.
“It would be extremely difficult to set protective health standards without the EPA’s Office of Research and Development, and I think that’s exactly what this administration is aiming for. I am not sure how the EPA could fulfill its legal mandate of public health protection if this plan goes forward.
“The scientists and experts in this office conduct and review the best available science to set limits on pollution and regulate hazardous chemicals to keep the public safe. We’re talking about soot that worsens asthma and heart disease, carcinogenic ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water, and heat-trapping emissions driving climate change. The administration knows, and history shows, that industry will not regulate itself.
“The EPA is claiming that this is not a done deal yet, so it’s paramount that the administration hear: This is not acceptable. Everyone, including President Trump and his cabinet’s children and grandchildren, would feel the consequences of this move, not to mention the most polluted communities, predominantly Black, Brown and low income, who would bear the brunt. Is the administration’s ideology and pledge to industries that strong that they are willing to put their own loved ones at risk?”
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.
LATEST NEWS
New York Mayor Mamdani Applauded for Closing $12 Billion Budget Deficit Without Austerity Measures
"We didn’t close the gap on the backs of working people," said Mayor Zohran Mamdani. "We closed it while funding parks, libraries, safer streets and making historic investments in public housing."
May 13, 2026
In announcing New York City's executive budget for the 2027 fiscal year on Tuesday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani proved that when city governments "stand with working families, not billionaires, there is nothing they cannot accomplish," said US Sen. Bernie Sanders, an early backer of the democratic socialist leader.
"Congratulations to Mayor Mamdani," said the Vermont independent senator. "He inherited a huge budget deficit, brought it down to zero, and still invested in childcare, housing, and city infrastructure."
Sanders was among the progressives applauding the announcement by Mamdani and Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul of new agreements between the city and Albany that, along with savings found by Mamdani's administration in the city budget and new taxes on wealthy households, resulted in a balanced budget for the city just four months after the mayor "inherited a $12 billion budget deficit" from former Mayor Eric Adams.
"We didn’t close the gap on the backs of working people," said Mamdani. "We closed it while funding parks, libraries, safer streets, and making historic investments in public housing. Call it pothole politics. Call it democratic socialism. It's government that delivers for the people who make this city run. That’s what New Yorkers deserve. And that’s what we will keep fighting for every single day."
Mamdani emphasized that negotiations with Albany and "months of painstaking work" to analyze the city's spending had allowed the city government to arrive at a "fully balanced budget" without slashing essential services for working New Yorkers.
"Many said the only way out of this was slashing services and passing an austerity budget," said Mamdani in a video his office posted on social media. "We rejected that."
When we came into office, we uncovered a $12 billion budget deficit.
Today, I’m proud to say we brought it down to zero.
We didn’t close the gap on the backs of working people.
We closed it while funding parks, libraries, safer streets and making historic investments in public… pic.twitter.com/TbNu6fhvjs
— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) May 12, 2026
Mamdani and Hochul announced that negotiations between the city and state had resulted in an additional $4 billion in funding from Albany, building on $1.5 billion the governor had committed to providing in February and funding for the city's universal childcare program.
The budget—which is still subject to negotiations with the City Council and final resolution with the state budget—includes the pied-à-terre tax Mamdani announced last month, with second homes valued at over $5 million subject to the tax, as well as a proposed unincorporated business tax on sole proprietorships and LLCs. Those new taxes are set to raise an estimated $500 million and $68 million, respectively, reported Daniel Dayen at The American Prospect.
As Common Dreams reported in March, Mamdani's government found $1.77 billion in savings by combing through the city's spending and finding ways to cut expensive software and technology contracts, shrink the government's "physical footprint" and rental expenses by giving up excess property, and reduce unnecessary overtime. The savings, Mamdani noted, were not achieved by slashing programs for New Yorkers in need.
Dayen reported that the deficit was also closed by delaying a class size reduction law, primarily affecting higher-income schools; restructuring the timing of certain pension payments while making no changes to benefits and continuing to fund city pension funds above the national average; centralizing support funds and making other changes to a rental assistance program; and reducing the use of Carter cases, which allow students with disabilities to have private school education expenses reimbursed by the city.
"Despite endless speculation that a socialist couldn’t manage a budget, Mayor Zohran Mamdani helped close a $12 billion deficit without major cuts to public services—all while continuing investments in parks, libraries, safer streets, public housing, and continuing to inspire millions of people that government can work for the people," said the grassroots progressive political advocacy group Our Revolution.
Olivia Leirer, co-executive director of the local grassroots organization New York Communities for Change, applauded the proposed budget and said the group plans to work with the mayor's office and the City Council to push for a $10 million investment to help low-income families replace inefficient and polluting oil and gas boilers, as well as more investments in childcare for the city's lowest-income families.
"Mayor Mamdani was always going to have to contend with the gaping $12 billion hole that Eric Adams left in our city budget," said Leirer. "While this budget proposal falls short in some areas, it shows that it’s possible to balance the budget without balancing it on the backs of working people. We commend the mayor for pushing Governor Hochul to tax luxury second homes, and we also appreciate the administration’s meaningful investments in childcare and the city’s workforce."
"This commitment is exactly why New Yorkers voted Mamdani into office last fall," she added, "For real, commonsense solutions to alleviate our city’s cost-of-living crisis."
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Trump Picks Former Private Prison Executive to Lead ICE as Industry Profits Surge
One House Democrat said the appointment of former GEO Group executive David Venturella "is to ensure Trump's corporate bosses continue profiting from our communities' pain."
May 13, 2026
The Trump administration announced Tuesday that former private prison executive David Venturella will lead US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in an acting capacity after the agency's current director departs at the end of the month.
Venturella has been a senior adviser to ICE since February 2025 and previously worked at the private prison giant GEO Group for more than a decade, most recently serving as the company's senior vice president of client relations until 2023. GEO Group is a major beneficiary of federal contracts, running immigration detention centers for ICE.
The Washington Post noted that GEO Group also "owns the only company with an ICE contract to track immigrants through GPS ankle monitors."
"A federal ethics rule generally bars government employees from working on contracts awarded to their former employers for one year, but the administration granted him a waiver from this rule," the Post observed.
GEO Group's PAC donated heavily to President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign and has seen a hefty return on its investment. The company reported $254 million in profits for fiscal year 2025—a 700% increase compared to the previous year—and boasted "record-setting new contract wins totaling up to $520 million."
As an ICE adviser, Venturella has advocated for the use of warehouses to detain immigrants, a practice that has drawn nationwide outrage. NBC News noted that "after he retired from GEO, Venturella was a consultant for the company, advising on new and existing contracts, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission."
The Trump administration's decision to elevate Venturella to the head of ICE comes as congressional Republicans are working to approve tens of billions of dollars in additional funding for the agency, even as deaths in detention rise and immigration officers unleashed by the president continue to face backlash for fatal abuses across the country.
The GOP's budget reconciliation proposal, according to an analysis by the American Immigration Council, includes over $38 billion for ICE to "expand and sustain enforcement operations by hiring and equipping personnel across its divisions, supporting detention and removal transportation, upgrading technology and facilities, and expanding 287(g) agreements with local law enforcement."
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), a lead sponsor of legislation that would terminate all existing federal contracts for immigration detention, said Tuesday that Venturella's appointment as acting ICE chief "is to ensure Trump's corporate bosses continue profiting from our communities' pain."
"But Americans demand oversight and accountability," said Ramirez. "We must Melt ICE, end detention, and dismantle [the Department of Homeland Security]."
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As SC GOP Fails to Advance Trump's Gerrymandering, Missouri Supreme Court Upholds Rigged Map
"MAGA loyalists are using every lever they control, from legislatures to courts, to rig the system and lock voters out of fair representation," said the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
May 12, 2026
While five Republican South Carolina senators joined Democrats in blocking a GOP effort to advance President Donald Trump's national gerrymandering push in the state on Tuesday, the Missouri Supreme Court handed him a key win, approving a rigged congressional map forced through last year.
"MAGA loyalists are using every lever they control, from legislatures to courts, to rig the system and lock voters out of fair representation," said the National Democratic Redistricting Committee after Missouri's top court rejected multiple challenges to the map that targets the 5th Congressional District, currently represented by Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.
In one consolidated case, the court found that opponents of the map failed to show that it "clearly and undoubtedly violates the requirements of Article III, Section 45 of the Missouri Constitution."
Marina Jenkins, executive director of the National Redistricting Foundation, said in a statement that "the arguments in this case, which were presented before the Missouri Supreme Court just this morning, took less than an hour and elicited zero questions from the court for the lawyers for either the plaintiffs or defendants."
"While one might be inclined to hope that these justices managed to grapple with a highly complex, nuanced, and consequential issue in just six hours, it seems clear the justices were not interested in the day's proceedings and simply had their opinion already finalized even before this morning's argument," Jenkins continued. "With this decision, the Missouri Supreme Court has shown Missourians the lack of seriousness with which it takes cases that pertain to protecting their right to vote—a complete and dangerous abdication of the judiciary's role."
Another case stems from a political group that has collected signatures to force a referendum vote on the state's redistricting. The court found that the filing did not automatically suspend the map under the state constitution.
As KOMU reported Tuesday, People Not Politicians Missouri has submitted over 300,000 signatures to Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, but the Republican has not yet said whether his office will approve or reject its inclusion on the ballot.
"The secretary of state's own data confirms what more than 305,000 Missourians already made clear: This referendum is sufficient, and the people have a right to vote," Richard von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians Missouri, said in the statement after the state court's decisions on Tuesday.
"Today's ruling from the Supreme Court confirms this fact. A sufficient petition suspends the law the day it is turned in," he continued. "Unnecessary delays by politicians do not change this fact. If he continues to delay, then he is moving forward under a map that has been suspended by the people."
Missouri Republicans won’t stop trying to illegally rig our maps. We collected 305,968 signatures to put their rigged map to a vote of the people, and they still refuse to do their job.So my name is Laura, and I’m here to bully my government. #FairMaps #Missouri #moleg
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— Laura Burkhardt (@lauraannstl.bsky.social) May 12, 2026 at 12:04 PM
Meanwhile, in South Carolina—a state already known for Republican map-rigging—the state Senate voted 29-17, two votes short of the two-thirds majority needed to move forward on redistricting to help the GOP, despite Trump's public call to "GET IT DONE!"
Welcoming the result, the state's Senate Democrats said that it "sent a clear message that South Carolina should not be dragged into another unnecessary and divisive redistricting battle driven by Washington insiders."
"South Carolina rejected a politically motivated power grab orchestrated by a White House shaped by perpetually online New York City activists with little understanding of South Carolina," the Senate Democrats continued. "The people of this state expect us to focus on the real issues affecting their daily lives, not carry out an outside political agenda."
They pledged that "Senate Democrats will continue fighting for fair representation, transparency, and a government focused on the needs of South Carolina families rather than national political gamesmanship."
While the Republican-led Indiana state Senate similarly rejected a Trump-backed gerrymander last December, GOP legislators in Florida, North Carolina, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas have caved to pressure from the president and enacted new maps ahead of November's midterm elections, in which Democrats hope to claim majorities in both chambers of Congress.
Tennessee's redistricting came after the right-wing US Supreme Court last month found that Louisiana's map was an "unconstitutional racial gerrymander" and gutted what remained of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The nation's top court on Monday also paved a path for Alabama lawmakers to break up their state’s majority-Black district.
In response to GOP attacks on voting rights across the South, "All Roads Lead to the South," the No Kings coalition, community members, faith leaders, and other organizations are planning demonstrations at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery as well as Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge on Saturday, May 16, with solidarity actions across the country.
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