EPA says it will eliminate its scientific research arm

> What if a significant portion of the electorate no longer believes institutions like the EPA are neutral arbiters of science, but instead see them as political actors pushing an agenda?

This is clearly the case. The next question is, how did this happen? Did these people come to this conclusion based on their own diligent research, or were they led to this opinion by supremely funded vested interests that influence every branch of our society?

For sure Fox et al. have been pushing the idea that scientists have biases, but it can also be true that science has become more biased.

Update: a little evidence. This doesn't cover change over time, but it strikes me as fairly extreme, unless you are willing to go very far down the "reality has a liberal bias" road: https://github.com/hughjonesd/academic-bias

Republicans not always do what the electorate wants.

Abortion, gun control and releasing the Epstain list are have popular support but the are against it.

Sometimes a small influential group can push for an agenda. That are more organized and have more money

Democrats also do not always do what the electorate wants.

How many times did they have executive and both houses since Roe v Wade without passing law to enshrine the right to abortion?

Surely they could have released the Epstein list as well.

We can argue which party is “worse than the other” for sure, but both serve themselves and neither is a bright shining star of serving the actual people IMO.

Its a fact that the EPA added ~6000 employees during the Biden administration and also instituted DEI policies to follow President Biden’s Executive Order 14035 (2021). This included employee-led special emphasis groups, LGBTQ+ events, and justice-oriented programs. All this is out of focus from the EPA's goal to safeguard the natural environment.

It should be NO surprise that there is massive push-back after a republican administration came to power. Donald Trump explicitly campaigned to cut the EPA’s size and funding and to eliminate DEI and environmental justice programs in the federal government.

If the EPA added ~6000 employees during Biden, why did it have 1,155 employees when Trump took office?

Wow, the bullshit some people are high on.

1,155 is the number of employees in the research office. The EPA overall had 16,155 employees in January 2025 [1].

[1] https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-announces-reduction-for...

> Republicans not always do what the electorate wants. > > Abortion, gun control and releasing the Epstain list are have popular support but the are against it.

No they're not, though? At least, amongst their voterbase. The Epstein files are the first truly bipartisan issue I've seen, the other two are very strictly partisan issues, and most Republicans/Conservatives I know do not want either.

Liberal in US = center right

> or were they led to this opinion by supremely funded vested interests that influence every branch of our society?

I hope you realize the irony that this argument applies to both sides of the argument here. In other words, how do you know that your research was done in an unbiased way?

As opposed to…?

> Wow, the bullshit some people are high on.

From the article, which was easy to google:

> The EPA currently has more than 16,000 employees, adding more than 6,000 during Joe Biden’s administration as the agency sought to rebuild.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/11/environm...