Internal records show that EPA staffers who had worked on climate change were reassigned to other offices last fall, months before the agency moved to end its climate program permanently.
The documents provided to POLITICO’s E&E News through a Freedom of Information Act request show that the Climate Change Division had 47 career staff at the end of October 2025, down from about 100 during the Biden administration. All of them were scattered throughout the Office of Air and Radiation near the end of last year after being reassigned to other programs. The division had been responsible for maintaining greenhouse gas reporting efforts and inventories, coordinating climate regulatory strategy and overseeing scientific analysis — all functions that EPA cut from its portfolio.
The move came when the Office of Atmospheric Protection — a subsidiary of the Office of Air and Radiation that housed the climate division — was dissolved as part of a broad reorganization at EPA.
Agency budget records show that 34 career employees from the Climate Change Division were assigned to the Office of Clean Air Programs, which was added to the air and radiation office during the restructuring. Seven other climate staffers were reassigned to the newly minted Office of State Air Partnerships. The Office of Transportation and Air Quality and the Office of Radiation and Indoor Air received three employees each from the shuttered division.
