EPA is pressing ahead next week with major restructurings of its air and solid waste offices despite the partial government shutdown, according to multiple people with knowledge of the plans.
For both the Office of Air and Radiation and the Office of Land and Emergency Management, the overhauls will take effect Monday, according to people both inside and outside the agency, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.
EPA began making its new organizational structures official earlier this month in the chemicals office and the administrator’s office, which now houses scientists from the defunct research office.
The air office overhaul, however, looms as particularly far-reaching. Besides scrapping the Office of Atmospheric Protection, which handles almost all of EPA’s climate work, the reorganization will abolish the Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, which writes regulations for power plants and dozens of other industries and also sets national limits for smog, soot and other common pollutants.
