Following in the footsteps of other federal science agencies under President Donald Trump’s administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week ordered its staff to start canceling grants already awarded to universities and research institutes, according to an agency source and an email seen by Science. Although EPA is not a large funder of R&D compared with other federal agencies, it does provide $35 million to $40 million each year to researchers studying the impacts of pollution and ways to reduce them.
The internal email, sent between senior agency administrators, gave no reason for scrapping the grants, but the Trump administration has also been downsizing EPA activities in other ways. Since Trump took office, EPA has scrapped $1.5 billion in grants for environmental justice and frozen $20 billion in funding for clean energy and efficiency programs. Two federal judges ruled last week that some of the climate funding must be released. One judge said the freeze was “neither reasonable nor reasonably explained,” and the other judge determined the administration has not provided evidence of waste, fraud, or abuse. EPA has appealed the decisions, and Administrator Lee Zeldin argues the case for cancellation is solid.
Until now, EPA had not targeted research funding. According to the email, the termination order involves grants from nine programs, including the investigator-initiated Science to Achieve Results (STAR); a university student research effort called People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3); and support of the Health Effects Institute (HEI), a nonprofit that studies air pollution. “It’s basically the entirety of EPA’s research grant portfolio,” says a source within the agency.
EPA can legally terminate awards made before 1 October 2024 just by citing a change in administration priorities. But the agency must identify a more specific cause or problem with grants awarded after that date, because former President Joe Biden’s administration last year revised EPA’s terms and conditions for grants.
The STAR program, which began in 1995, is EPA’s main source of extramural, competitive research funding. Peer-reviewed, 5-year grants average about $1 million and run up to nearly $2 million. The research spans agency priorities, including air and water quality, climate change impacts, and safer chemicals. More than 100 active grants are subject to immediate cancellation and total $124 million over their duration. It’s not clear whether EPA has notified any recipients of grant cancellations.
HEI is an even longer running commitment. Begun in 1980 as a partnership between EPA and the motor vehicle industry, the institute focuses on pollution from vehicles and also from oil and gas development. It received one-third of its $13 million budget from EPA grants in the year ending 30 June 2024. HEI says it has not been told of any cancellation. The future of the HEI grant is now being debated internally, according to a source in EPA.
In the P3 program, which began in 2004, university students can apply for small EPA grants to design technological solutions to environmental problems. Last year, 16 teams won a total of $1.2 million for projects such as detection and cleanup of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as “forever chemicals”; creating compostable packaging film; and fighting algal blooms.
In addition to these programs, EPA spends another $8 million to $10 million per year on “national priority” grants in areas specified by Congress. In recent years, this has included the study of microbial pathogens in drinking water and byproducts of water disinfection.
Total spending on all nine programs is between $35 million and $40 million per year. During the process of terminating active and pending grants, the agency email says, EPA administrators should not begin any new solicitations for research grants in these programs without approval from top brass.
EPA declined to confirm it was killing existing grants, telling Science it continues to review awarded grants to check that they are “an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars” and “align with Administration priorities.” In a press conference today, Zeldin said EPA would continue to fund grants that Congress has specified in legislation. “If Congress appropriates a dollar to EPA and says that EPA needs to send that dollar to a university scientist, that is our statutory obligation,” he said.
More: https://www.science.org/content/article/epa-orders-staff-begin-canceling-research-grants
