President Trump's “energy control” agenda will be undermined by sudden cuts in federal agencies that the Trump administration is said to be planned, scientists, lawmakers and energy executives warned Monday.
Pleas from numerous lodgings have flowed into the Cabinet Secretary's inbox, asking them to save various departments of the agency. Federal officials face a deadline to present another plan for a mass shooting today, and agencies dealing with energy and the environment are expected to be hit hard.
Experts said cuts from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Interior and the Department of Energy would most seriously hurt efforts to tackle climate change. However, there is little hope that these concerns will be listened to by Trump administration officials who denies or disregard the threat of global warming.
Instead, job cuts are debating in line with the Trump administration's priorities by saying that cuts threaten the expansion of nuclear energy, mineral production and energy access.
For example, the Department of Energy is expected to have some of the biggest losses in places like the Clean Energy Demonstration, overseeing several large-scale projects, including plans to build seven hydrogen hubs across the country. Another expected goal is the Loan Program Office, which provides federal funding for clean energy.
The coalition of energy producers and trade groups representing nuclear, data centers, wind and solar energy, and direct air acquisition technology are ways to extract carbon dioxide that warms the planet from its atmosphere, saying Cut “critical wastes America's energy and industrial strategy.”
They pointed out that the loan office is the only new nuclear power plant in the country. and Nevada's major lithium mining projects (lithium is a critical battery component) and Grid upgrades in Arizona and the Midwest support the rapidly growing electricity demand from manufacturing.
Meanwhile, 20 former commissioners, secretaries and directors of the state environmental agency have issued letters expressing “deep concerns” about the report that the EPA will remove the Scientific Research Division, the Research and Development Agency.
EPA administrator Lee Zeldin has individually said he intends to cut the agency's budget and workforce by around 65%.
The letter does not address the role of the department in providing the scientific foundations for climate change and regulations. Instead, state officials wrote to Zeldin that the cuts would undermine the state agency's ability to do their job.
State officials said at the same level that “the state does not have the capacity to carry out research.” The EPA's science department has guided everything from methods to removing PFA (a class of chemicals linked to numerous health risks) from drinking water to developing new technologies to clean heavy metals from toxic cleanup sites.
Democrats on the House Energy Commerce Committee issued a letter to Wright and Zeldin on Monday about the effectiveness of what lawmakers described as “mass shootings” at the agency. “Your continued attacks on professional civil servants will threaten public health and make it impossible for the EPA to “fulfill its mission of protecting human health and the environment,” New Jersey Representative Frank Paron, the committee and other top Democrats on the lawmakers, wrote to Zeldin.
Thousands of workers across the government have already resigned, including more than 1,100 of the National Park Service. Another said 1,100 more have resigned from the Bureau of Land Management, overseeing 245 million acres of national public land.
Both requested anonymity to discuss details of the resignation that the administration has not yet been made public.
