United States EPA staff fear massive cuts under Trump

After several years of recovery following the tumult of Donald Trump's last administration, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is bracing for even deeper cuts to staff numbers and to work protecting Americans from pollution and the climate crisis as Trump prepares to return to power.

- Oliver Milman, Tom Perkins

When he was last president, Trump gutted more than 100 environmental rules and vowed to only leave a "little bit of the EPA" left "because you can't destroy business", prompting hundreds of agency staff to leave amid a firestorm of political interference and retaliation against civil servants. An even greater exodus is expected this time, with staff fearing they are frontline targets in what could be the biggest upheaval in the agency's 50-year history.

"People are anxious and apprehensive, [and] we are preparing for the worst," said Nicole Cantello, an EPA water specialist and president of the AFGE Local 704 union, representing agency staff in the midwest.

"We've had a taste of what will happen and how we were targeted last time," she said. "By the emails and texts I'm getting, a lot of people will leave. So many things could be thrown at us that it could destroy the EPA as we know it."