Far fewer peer-reviewed studies are being published by scientists at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) following major staff cuts since President Trump began his second term. This is according to new analysis from the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer).
The organisation has released figures showing that the EPA produced 275 peer-reviewed studies in 2025, which represents a drop of 19% from 2024. The agency’s scientists have produced 61 peer-reviewed publications so far this year, which Peer estimates would put the EPA on track to produce 163 peer-reviewed publications by the end of 2026. That would mean the number of such studies the agency generates this year would plummet by more than 40% from last year and almost 52% from 2024.
‘These numbers represent a diminution of scientific contributions from the fewer, remaining EPA scientists,’ stated Kyla Bennett, a scientist and attorney who is Peer’s science policy director and formerly worked at the EPA. ‘It is as if EPA is seeking to reduce the sum total of human knowledge.’
Bennett described the trend as a ‘retreat from published research’ and expressed concern that it will have ‘a self-reinforcing effect’ that could translate to fewer young scientists joining the EPA, adding that scientific careers rely upon published work. ‘The net result is that the scientific contribution of EPA to a greater understanding of what affects human health and the environment will be diminished,’ she said.
The EPA’s workforce has seen dramatic cuts during Trump’s current presidential term. Between financial years 2025 and 2026, the agency lost 3000 employees according to the latest federal workforce data. That represents approximately 20% of the agency’s entire staff.
Some of these redundancies came after hundreds of EPA employees signed a dissent letter last summer, many of them anonymously, opposing numerous Trump administration policies such as the dismantling of the EPA Office of Research and Development that had served as the foundation of the agency’s science-based regulations and policies for decades.
Peer estimates that at least 15 EPA employees linked to the dissent letter were terminated by the agency, of which approximately one-third were scientists. The majority of the signatories received 14-day unpaid suspensions, the organisation adds.
Similarly, records from the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 238 – the union that represents about 8000 EPA employees – indicate that six of its members who were probationary employees at the agency were dismissed, of which three were scientists, and 10 other tenured EPA employees belonging to AFGE 238 were fired, five of whom were scientists. The union is suing the government over these firings, arguing that the disciplinary actions and terminations were illegal and violate the workers’ First Amendment free speech rights.
Employees at other US research agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, also signed similar letters of dissent last summer. But the EPA appears to be the only one that has pursued formal discipline against these dissenters, according to Peer.
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