E.P.A. Set to Cancel Grants Aimed at Protecting Children From Toxic Chemicals

The Trump administration is set to cancel tens of millions of dollars in grants to scientists studying environmental hazards faced by children in rural America, among other health issues, according to internal emails written by senior officials at the Environmental Protection Agency.

The planned cancellation of the research grants, which were awarded to scientists outside the agency, comes as President Trump continues to dismantle some of the E.P.A.’s core functions.

The grants are designed to address a range of issues, including improving the health of children in rural America who have been exposed to pesticides from agriculture and other pollution; reducing exposure to wildfire smoke; and preventing “forever chemicals” from contaminating the food supply.

An email sent by Dan Coogan, a deputy assistant administrator at the E.P.A., on April 15, and seen by The New York Times, said the agency leadership was directing staff to cancel all pending and active grants across a number of key programs, including Science to Achieve Results, known as STAR.

According to the email, the cuts also targeted the People, Prosperity and the Planet program, or P3, which awards small grants to college students to work on environmental solutions. In the latest funding year, students were developing antiviral face masks from plastic waste as well as 100 percent-compostable packaging film.

“We have received direction from Leadership to cancel all pending awards and terminate grants for the following programs,” the email from Mr. Coogan began, followed by a list of programs.

In response to inquiries on Monday, the E.P.A. said the grants had not been canceled. “As with any change in Administration, the agency is reviewing its awarded grants to ensure each is an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars and to understand how those programs align with Administration priorities,” said the emailed statement from the E.P.A.’s press office. “The agency’s review is ongoing.”

Still, project officers have started to receive cancellation notices. One such notice seen by The New York Times was sent on Friday stating that the grant “has been canceled” and instructing officers to “begin the process of deobligating funds.”

Many grants involve issues that affect regions of the country where voters supported Mr. Trump. One grant funds Oklahoma University scientists researching how to help children in rural America who face increased health risks from pesticide and other pollution, issues that can be compounded by limited access to health care and higher poverty rates.

Combined, those factors can cause rural children to miss school days, perpetuating a cycle of sickness and disadvantage, research has shown.

The targeted grants, which total about $40 million a year, play an outsize role in advancing research on environmental health, experts said.

“This is just terrible,” said Tracey Woodruff, a former senior scientist and policy adviser at the E.P.A. who now teaches at the University of California, San Francisco. “E.P.A.’s research program is already woefully underfunded, particularly when considering the enormity of the health problems faced by environmental exposure to the American public.”

The agency’s research is unique “because it focuses on answering questions that will help E.P.A. do a better job of identifying and protecting people from toxic chemicals,” Dr. Woodruff said. “Defunding this research will do the opposite of the administration’s goal of making America healthy.”

Many of the grants have their roots in research that emerged in the 1990s that showed children are much more vulnerable to toxic chemical exposure than adults. Congress soon passed the nation’s first law with provisions explicitly designed to protect children’s health, which led to a series of grants, awarded to universities and medical centers, to explore how environmental hazards were affecting infants.

“For the past 25 years these grants have generated enormous amounts of new information about children’s vulnerability to toxic chemicals in the environment,” said Philip J. Landrigan, a pediatrician and director of the Program for Global Public Health at Boston College, who led the initial research into children’s health.

One exception to the cuts were expected to be grants awarded after Oct. 1, the date when Biden-era changes kicked in making it harder for grants to be clawed back, according to a separate email sent by another senior official.

The planned cancellations come on the heels of controversy surrounding $20 billion in grants for climate and clean energy programs that had been funded by Congress but were frozen at the Trump administration’s request. The move has been labeled illegal by nonprofit groups that were supposed to receive the funds.

The E.P.A. has also shut down its offices responsible for addressing the disproportionately high levels of pollution that poor communities face. And internal documents have outlined plans to eliminate the agency’s scientific research arm, a move that experts have said will hinder clean water improvements, air quality monitoring, toxic site cleanups and other parts of the agency’s mission.

That’s even as the current administration has pursued a platform to “Make America Healthy Again,” led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of Health and Human Services, who has in the past been vocal about dangers posed by pesticides and other pollution linked to agriculture. And Mr. Trump, in appointing former congressman Lee Zeldin to helm the Environmental Protection Agency, promised America would maintain “the cleanest air and water on the planet.”

Grant-funded projects have often focused on babies in utero as well as after birth. Scientists now have abundant evidence that a mother’s chemical exposure during pregnancy can result in children who suffer from brain injury, autism, birth defects, cancer, as well as increased risk for heart disease and diabetes in later life.

By cutting these grants, “an administration that claims to be anti-abortion is allowing infants in the womb, and young children, to be damaged by increased levels of toxic chemicals in the environment,” Dr. Landrigan said.

The retrenchment also targets about $8 million in grants that had been awarded to researchers studying how to prevent harmful per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, from accumulating in crops and the food chain.

Concerns have been growing over widespread contamination of American farmland from fertilizer contaminated with PFAS, which are also known as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down in the environment. PFAS has been linked to cancer and other diseases.