The current presidential administration has made many changes to preserved policies in the EPA, NSF, and more branches. Catch up on what may have been missed.
EPA Plans to Cut Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program for Most Polluters
A public program collecting and reporting greenhouse gas emissions since 2010 from approximately 8,000 facilities a year is next to be cut in Trump’s administration. The Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program accounts for 85% to 90% of all greenhouse emissions in the United States. The EPA is drafting a new rule to reduce data collection efforts, reducing the required reporting to only 2,300 facilities in the oil and gas industry. Under the guise of bolstering the “American Dream,” this new cut will let greenhouse gas emitters off the hook and encourage more emissions. Read more: Trump’s EPA Plans to Stop Collecting Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data From Most Polluters
Pollution from a facility in Gary, Indiana.
Photo: thinkstock_images
View DOGE Cuts Map Tracker by City, State, and Congressional District
The White House is trying to quickly push through the deregulation and defunding of our publicly agreed upon social programs. Their goal is to make it difficult to keep track of every cut to public funds the Trump administration is pushing through. That is why organizations like the Center for American Progress have created a tracker including an interactive map indicating which grant and lease terminations were made by congressional district.
There is also a list naming the state, representative, district, city, agency, recipient, program, grant type, total value of the original grant, and cut to said grant claimed by DOGE since cuts began. For example, the San Diego State University Foundation had $4,191,942 of their $5,100,000 Environmental Protection Agency grant cut by DOGE for surveys, studies, investigations, training and special purpose activities relating to environmental justice in the CA-51 district of San Diego, California, where Sara Jacobs (D) is the representative. View here: DOGE Cuts by City, State, and Congressional District
This interactive map states the number of cuts made by congressional district along with the associated respresentative with data sourced from the doge.gov/savings website.
Map: Center for American Progress
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Proposed Major Budget Cuts
After the Trump administration fired hundreds of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees, they are proposing to eliminate the budget and functionality of the department by 25% overall. This would include a 75% cut to OAR, the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research budget, with the aim of eliminating the research branch completely. Also included in the cuts are a 44% decrease in geostationary satellites of NOAA’s premier satellite technology, which threatens Elon Musk’s companies. NOAA was in the process of developing the next generation of its satellites, which will now be hampered by reduction in funding, jeopardizing the scheduled orbit launch of the next geospatial satellite in 2032. Read more: Major budget cuts proposed for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
DEI and “Misinformation” Funding Cut at the National Science Foundation
After decades of research, programming, and other means of retention for racial minorities and women in STEM to improve overall scientific media literacy, the Trump administration directed the National Science Fund to end all DEI-related funding on April 18, 2025. All programming focusing on combating misinformation will also be terminated by the NSF. Programming through NSF can only be funded if it does not “indirectly preference or exclude individuals or groups based on protected characteristics,” with the definition of protected characteristics being purposefully vague to increase uncertainty around funding. Other agencies like NIH and NASA are also receiving similar vague restrictions to funding, with confusion and fear seeming to be the main objective of cuts. Read more: National Science Foundation Sets New Priorities
Environmental Justice EPA Employees Face Summer Termination
On April 21, 2025, employees of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights and regional environmental justice divisions received an email that there will be a Reduction in Force projected for this summer. By July 31st, the RIF will take effect. The Office of Personnel Management has granted the Trump EPA an exemption from 60-day RIF notices and will instead issue 30-day RIF notices. Read more: EPA’s ‘environmental justice’ employees face layoffs this summer
National Climate Assessment Authors Dismissed in Latest Cut
Billion-dollar weather and climate disasters are events where damages/costs reach or exceed $1 billion. 89 billion-dollar weather events affected the US, including 4 droughts, 6 floods, 52 severe storms, 18 tropical cyclones, 5 wildfires, and 4 winter storm events between 2018 and 2022. The US now experiences, on average, a billion-dollar weather or climate disaster every three weeks. The dismissal of the authors of the next National Climate Assessment threatens the release of important data like this.
Map: National Climate Assessment
The Trump administration is undermining the National Climate Assessment, which provides global warming information affecting the United States. The assessment, last completed in 2023, is supposed to be conducted every four years with the latest edition projected for 2027. The 2023 edition included online maps allowing open access to local climate change data affecting individual communities.
400 volunteer authors were already working on the sixth edition, until April 29th when they were dismissed by DOGE via email. This latest cut will have negative repercussions for those planning for the future of climate disasters such as reducing heat stress, building with sea level rise, mitigating wildfire smoke, and many more environmental issues that are continuing to be exacerbated by climate change.
Such an attack on the National Climate Assessment has not been seen before in past administrations, but past Republican administrations have also tried to threaten the release. The report has not been published on time by previous Republican administrations in the past, like in 2008 when the George W. Bush administration released a climate assessment edition four years late after a lawsuit. Read more: White House dismisses authors of major climate report
Judge Blocks Trump EPA from Unlawful Termination of Climate Grants
Luckily there are still people fighting back unlawful freezes and terminations to previously approved and dispersed public funds. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered Citibank to unfreeze the funds to the recipients of Biden-era climate grants after previously blocking Citibank from returning the funds to the U.S. Treasury. She unfroze $14 billion of the $20 billion total grants, stating that the EPA cannot terminate them while the issue plays out in court. Read more: Judge blocks Trump EPA from clawing back billions in Biden-era climate grants
