Vought, an architect of conservative policy roadmap Project 2025, has signaled<\/a> that the Trump administration would use a standoff as an opportunity to further shrink agencies that already have seen massive layoffs, resignations and retirements this year.<\/p>\n Executing layoffs during a shutdown is part of the Trump administration\u2019s effort to unilaterally dismantle agencies responsible for environmental science and enforcement, said Symons, a senior advisor to the EPN, a group of former EPA staff.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a bigger fight of whether or not Congress is going to actually be able to step up and stop this. Because it will just continue to happen,\u201d Symons said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s political opponents have suggested the administration doesn\u2019t want a budget deal and is angling instead to take executive actions during the shutdown.<\/p>\n Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday, \u201cif it has to shut down, it\u2019ll have to shut down.\u201d On Sunday, he warned<\/a> of \u201cmass firings\u201d in an NBC News interview. If the government shuts down, \u201cwe are going to cut a lot of the people that \u2026 we\u2019re able to cut on a permanent basis,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It remains unclear how sweeping those cuts might be, who they would target or how they would stand up to likely challenges in court. Advocates for public health and the environment fear the cuts will target the same agencies already worn down by a confusing onslaught of layoffs, buyouts, re-hirings and legal challenges related to the administration\u2019s downsizing agenda.\u00a0<\/p>\n The White House referred questions on the shutdown\u2019s impact on this work to the agencies. Representatives for the EPA and the commerce and interior departments did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the shutdown.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the EPA is very susceptible to additional layoffs,\u201d said Jeanne Briskin, former director of the EPA\u2019s Office of Children\u2019s Health Protection. She noted that expertise was already lost when the Trump administration eliminated the agency\u2019s environmental justice office and its Office of Research and Development.<\/p>\n \u201cThe goal seems to be to remove the expertise and the experience necessary to implement our federal environmental protection laws, and so as long as there are people there who know how to do that, I think the goal is to strip that out as much as possible,\u201d said Briskin, who retired in 2024 after 40 years at the EPA.<\/p>\n Other environmental groups have warned of threats to the national parks and the service that maintains them during a government shutdown. When the government partially shut down during the first Trump administration, national parks remained open and unstaffed for 35 days, leading to rampant vandalism, habitat destruction and accumulation of garbage.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last week, 35 former superintendents of the National Park Service urged the government to close the parks if a shutdown occurs and prevent further degradation.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf you don\u2019t act now, history is not just doomed to repeat itself, the damage could in fact be much worse,\u201d they wrote in a letter<\/a> to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.<\/p>\n The letter said parks were already \u201cpushed to the brink\u201d by staffing and budget reductions this year. Both the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service were among the administration\u2019s priority cuts as part of its \u201cenergy dominance\u201d initiatives to increase production of oil, gas and minerals on public lands.<\/p>\n Conservation advocates have described<\/a> the cutbacks as part of larger plans to dismantle the agencies so parks and forests can be privatized. The sale of public lands was part of the Project 2025 agenda.<\/p>\n \u201cA government shutdown will make an already bad situation at national parks and public lands far worse,\u201d said a statement issued Tuesday by the Coalition to Protect America\u2019s National Parks and the Association of National Park Rangers. \u201cAlready pushed to the brink by budget cuts and staff reductions, our parks are on an unsustainable and dangerous path.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tAbout This Story<\/p>\n Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That\u2019s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can\u2019t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We\u2019ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.<\/p>\n Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.<\/p>\n Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don\u2019t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places? <\/p>\n Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.<\/p>\n Thank you,<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t![\"Dylan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG_0748-2-300x300.jpg\"\/)
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