Justine Calma

“This is a wrecking ball assault on the science that protects the air we breathe and the water we drink from toxic chemicals and pollution,” Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, former principal deputy assistant administrator at the EPA’s Office of Research and Development, said in a statement yesterday.

That includes the L.A. office of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The federal employee union representing EPA employees told The Verge last month that the Trump administration’s efforts to gut the agency could hamper wildfire recovery efforts in the region.

NASA contributes significantly to research on climate, weather, air quality, and the environment. Joe Biden appointed chief scientist Katherine Calvin, who was recently stopped from joining a meeting of the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Science reports.

Donald Trump tapped anti-vax crusader Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has spread disinformation falsely linking vaccines to autism, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services that houses NIH.

”If the United States escalates, I will not hesitate to shut the electricity off completely,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said at a press conference, the Associated Press reports.