Trump Staff Cuts Hollow Out Extreme Heat Programs
Layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services have dealt a critical blow to the agency's efforts to manage rising temperatures made worse by climate change
CLIMATEWIRE | Widespread layoffs this week at the Department of Health and Human Services have effectively dismantled programs aimed at keeping Americans safe from extreme heat and other climate-driven weather.Last year was the warmest on record. But layoffs at HHS include staff that administer grants that help state and local health departments prepare and respond to extreme weather events such as heat waves, as well as federal workers tasked with maintaining online tools that raise awareness about the dangers of heat and tell people how to protect themselves from fatal conditions such as heat stroke.“This is really important, valuable work,” said Lori Freeman, CEO for the National Association of County and City Health Officials. “As entire departments are cut, we are concerned that it will decimate resources available to key state and local work.”On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.That includes the entire staff of a federal program that helps low-income households pay utility bills for air conditioning and heating.Congress’ recently passed continuing resolution allocated $378 million to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. It provides support to some 6 million Americans.But the staff who normally would process that money and send it to states where it can be spent to keep air conditioners running through summer heat waves are now all on administrative leave, and will be terminated June 2.“There are over 6 million families that are helped through this program, and now there is a possibility that the administration won’t allocate them,” said Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association, which represents states. "It’s deeply disturbing."Heat can be deadly when people don't have access to air conditioning, as the majority of Americans who die from heat perish indoors. Cutting LIHEAP staff, and potentially preventing funds from reaching people in need, could cost lives, said Amneh Minkara, deputy director of the Sierra Club Building Electrification Campaign."The elimination of the staff administering LIHEAP could have dire, potentially deadly, impacts for folks who will not be able to safely cool their homes as we enter what is predicted to be another historically hot summer," she said.LIHEAP isn’t alone. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly the entire staff for the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice (DEHSP) has been axed, including those who worked in the climate and health program that provides grants to local and state health departments.Currently, the climate program, which annually receives $10 million in congressional appropriations, is funding grants to 13 state and local health departments. Those grants are in their fourth of five years, and recipients next week are supposed to submit annual reviews of how they have used the funds before they can be allocated the last year of funds.“The reports are just going to sit there because there is no one left to review them and approve their next year of funding,” said one employee who until this week worked in DEHSP’s climate and health program. The employee was granted anonymity for fear of reprisal.Asked about the funds, HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard said the agency “will continue to comply with statutory requirements, and as a result of the reorganization, will be better positioned to execute on Congress’ statutory intent.”She did not respond to follow-up questions asking how HHS would allocate funds to states without help from staff members who have been laid off.Asked about HHS layoffs more broadly during a POLITICO Live event, HHS special government employee Calley Means said, “it is insane for you to insinuate that the thing standing between us and better health is more government bureaucrats.”“Those scientists demonstrably have overseen a record of utter failure,” he said.The layoffs have raised alarms among Democratic members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, who wrote in a letter to Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) that the cuts were made “indiscriminately” and “without regard to the impact that they will have on the ability of HHS and its operating divisions to meet its statutory responsibilities and its obligations to the American people.”Uncertain future for online resourcesDEHSP has in recent years created multiple online tools and trackers that combine health and weather data to show how climate change — and heat in particular — affect people's well-being.One tool, the HeatRisk tracker, marries National Weather Service and local health data to predict not just heat and humidity, but also the risk those temperatures pose to local residents with different underlying health conditions at a county level.The tool is widely used by state and county health departments.Last summer, for example, county health departments in Pennsylvania disseminated screenshots from the online tool to explain to Scranton-area residents that a mid-June heat wave “is hot enough to affect most people and impact most health systems.” The Pennsylvania Department of Health also referenced the tool in a health alert to hospitals and other health care facilities about the heat wave.But it’s not clear whether the tool will remain online this summer. One CDC climate program employee granted anonymity because of fears of reprisal said that some NWS staff who worked on the tool were probationary employees who have been laid off already.“Everybody who worked on that is RIFed,” he said, referring to the reduction-in-force notifications.The same CDC staff had been working to launch a new tool aimed at examining pollen trends and correlating them with emergency room visits for asthma and other related health conditions. The project was set to launch in a couple of weeks to help medical professionals respond to the way warmer winters due to climate change are boosting pollen productions and worsening allergies.“Now people who are trying to plan for allergy season won’t have that data about how pollen seasons have shifted, and the health care professionals who might tell their patients to get their allergy shots three weeks early won’t have the information to base that decision off,” the staffer said.Preston Burt, a communications specialist in the Environment Public Health Tracking Branch who was laid off this week, called the decision to terminate the CDC staff “shortsighted to the health of our country.”“They may, on paper, think that some activities are duplicative in other aspects of the federal workforce, but that's not the case, and the work we do has real impact and affects real people," he said.HHS also is expected to lay off most staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Employees told POLITICO’s E&E News that there are only two NIOSH programs expected to remain untouched by layoffs. One is a program that monitors World Trade Center first responders from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Another monitors radiation exposure during the Cold War.Supervisors in all other departments already have received their RIF notices, while hundreds more staff, who are union members, have been told that HHS has begun a process to terminate them come June 30.Among those leaving the agency are some of the nation’s leading experts on how to keep workers safe from heat stroke as they labor in extreme temperatures.“We always do a big push as summer gets closer on social media about here is how you keep workers safe from heat, what are the symptoms of heat-related illnesses,” said one NIOSH employee granted anonymity because of fears of reprisal. “But this year, when we get to heat season, there will be nobody left to respond to questions from the public about heat stress.”The employee said that spending constraints imposed by the Trump administration meant NIOSH has been unable to reprint educational pamphlets about heat stress and workers in preparation for summer.At the end of last summer, NIOSH released a smartphone app in partnership with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to help employers plan for extreme heat. The app uses a smartphone’s location to tell users what precautions can help prevent heat-related illness based on local temperature data.NIOSH staff responsible for maintaining and updating the app to fix any bugs have all been told they will be laid off by the end of June.“It’s fair to say that if there is no one at NIOSH to maintain it, the app will start to malfunction, and so the people who were relying on the app to keep people safe won’t be able to anymore,” said Doug Parker, former OSHA administrator who helped launch the app.Until now, NIOSH has always been housed within the CDC. What remains of NIOSH after the layoffs soon will be moved to a newly created Administration for Healthy America, in the office of the assistant secretary for health.Layoffs include staff who certify masks, respiratorsNIOSH is perhaps best-known by Americans for the work it does certifying respirators and masks that protect workers from infectious diseases, such as Covid-19, and on-the-job chemical exposures, including wildfire smoke.“The N in N95 stands for NIOSH,” said Parker.But the HHS layoffs include the team of workers who conduct those certifications.The cuts could directly hamper efforts to develop respirators for firefighters who battle wildfires, usually without any lung protection, due to the unique strains of the job. It also could hamper efforts to update existing masks to make them more comfortable for outdoor workers exposed to wildfire smoke or pesticides.Asked about the layoffs, Hilliard, at HHS, said only that NIOSH, “along with its critical programs,” will soon join the Administration for a Healthy America “alongside multiple agencies to improve coordination of health resources for low-income Americans.”She did not respond to follow-up questions about how or whether respirator certifications could continue at the agency without staff who have worked on those efforts.Parker expressed doubt that those certifications could easily be taken over by staff with other expertise, noting that certifications take into account a variety of factors about how ventilation and different mask materials might affect respirators’ effectiveness.“Without the research that NIOSH does and that expertise, these respirator problems are just not going to get solved,” he said. “You are talking about profound health consequences for people who have exposures.”Reporter Ellie Borst contributed.Reach reporter Ariel Wittenberg on Signal at Awitt.40Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. 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