Budget Cut After Budget Cut, We Are Losing Environmental Sciences

The author is a Senior at Liberty High School in Lake St. Louis, Missouri. We republish this story, originally published in ‘LHS Today’ on Oct. 7. 2025.

“Drill, baby, drill,” a conservative, anti-environmentalist phrase, first made its appearance in 2008 by former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele. This message advocates for increased oil and gas production in search of lower fuel prices, despite the serious consequences. It shares an overall lack of care for the environment. President Trump has revived this phrase, having been met with deafening applause when he declared it during his inauguration.

These words, spoken right at the inception of his second presidency, have now served as an early indicator of the Trump Administration’s overall animosity towards the environmental sciences.

Photo courtesy of Berardo62, Wikimedia Commons.

Following the Trump Administration and DOGE’s infamous plan to cut government spending, numerous environmental organizations have faced critical reductions in staff and threats of reduced funding. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), NPS (National Parks Service), and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) took critical hits from Trump and Musk.

The budget the Trump Administration proposed to Congress stated that it would “terminate a variety of climate-dominated research, data, and grant programs, which are not aligned with Administration policy-ending ‘Green New Deal’ initiatives.” Any organizations that supported ideas of the Green New Deal — a proposed set of ideas to address climate change along with economic inequality-were met with severe cuts to their funding.

Within the proposed budget, Trump called to lower EPA funding by 55%, later resulting in the EPA’s closure of the Office of Research and Development in order to preemptively reduce spending. The work of the ORD was described to be “woke climate research, and skewed, overly-precautionary modeling,” by the Trump Administration.

The ORD’s official job was to investigate the dangers created by chemicals, climate change, and pollutants. Their work laid the foundation for making credible decisions on what could and could not be put into American markets. The office was also vital in research within fossil fuel recovery, protection against pollution, and methane mitigation.

So what does this mean for Americans?

“It is a big loss of expertise and institutional knowledge for our government and, more importantly, for our citizens who depend on their work and decisions,” a U.S. Geological Survey employee who chose to remain anonymous said. Without the ORD, the EPA lacks the means to investigate impacts on human health, leaving the public vulnerable.

“I know one of the nation’s most prominent hydrologists who specializes in flood prediction. She has a PhD and 25 years of experience. Her predictions are used in the design of roads, bridges, and dams by engineers across the nation. She chose to retire instead of being fired,” the USGS employee said. “This makes obtaining this information harder, and more expensive for the taxpayer because she may be re-hired as a contractor or consultant, but at a much higher pay rate, and without the objectivity that her government position afforded her.”

But the EPA isn’t the only government organization experiencing these threats. Since the Trump administration took office, the National Park Service has lost 24% of its permanent staff. Despite the plans to significantly cut funding, the administration is still calling for the parks to remain open, pushing any remaining staff into public service roles. This removes these workers from their previous work of protecting endangered species, battling invasive plants, and fixing crumbling infrastructure.

“They succeeded in reducing the workforce by scaring and disrespecting [us], and threatening a future where we would need to submit to their agenda,” the USGS employee said. “I know at least 15-20 first class scientists, just in my circle of colleagues, that left because they did not want to be a part of this government.”

Over 600 types of endangered species live in the national parks, and are reliant upon its protections for their survival. With a lack of funding and manpower to remove invasive species and combat potential diseases, these already at risk organisms face an even larger threat.

Similarly, the Trump Administration has planned to slash the funds for the National Marine Fisheries Service within the NOAA with a 40% budget cut. These fisheries are responsible for the management, conservation, and protection of the U.S. marine life, including fish, whales, sea turtles, and their habitats. 

The Administration cites the NOAA’s disagreeable environmentalist research and its “consistently funded efforts to radicalize students against markets and spread environmental alarm,” as the reasoning behind these cuts. Said radicalization refers to NOAA’s regulations and management of commercial fishing within their fisheries. 

Because of cuts to funding, NOAA will see struggles with ensuring safe seafood, healthy ocean ecosystems, and overall conservation. Americans, in the end, could witness a decrease in quality of fish taken from these areas due to a lack of money for sustainable fishing management. Product quality will go down if the environment it comes from is not healthy. 

The implications of what these cuts to environmental sciences are going to do to our nation is already taking shape. If the Trump Administration continues to shout “drill, baby, drill,” and identify the work of conservationists and scientists as “woke” and “over-precautionary,” the environment and our public health is in serious danger.

Budget Cut After Budget Cut, We Are Losing Environmental Sciences © 2025 by Youth Environmental Press Team is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/