The move to slash the number of offices within the agency is expected to save taxpayers $300 million.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin is announcing major restructuring changes at the agency on Friday, National Review has learned, slashing the number of offices within the agency and reassigning staff to make the operation more efficient. Zeldin predicts the organizational changes will save $300 million annually.

The directive includes renaming and combining several departments to better align the agency’s resources toward what Zeldin characterizes as mission-critical agency functions.

For example, Zeldin is creating the Office of State Air Partnerships within the Office of Air and Radiation to facilitate permitting coordination between the federal government and state, local, and tribal air permitting agencies.

And according to the agency, the restructuring changes mean the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention “will gain more than 130 scientific, technical, bioinformatic, and information technology experts” to work on chemical and pesticide reviews.

Under this new initiative, “EPA is also elevating issues of cybersecurity, emergency response, and water reuse and conservation to ensure they are receiving appropriate resources to address today’s pressing water issues,” the agency said.

While Friday’s organizational changes did not coincide with any staff layoffs, the agency continues to tout the reduction in force notices that new leadership sent to EPA employees working in the agency’s environmental justice and DEI offices earlier this year, as well as the administrator’s decision to transfer 175 employees to other offices in accordance with statutory obligations.

An EPA official also emphasized that the agency is currently offering a second round of deferred resignations to eligible employees as part of Zeldin’s broader goal of shrinking EPA staff to employment levels seen during the Ronald Reagan presidency.

“The Office of Human Capital Operations is offering informational briefings on the Deferred Resignation Program and VERA. More than 8,300 employees attended the first briefing that was held this week,” the EPA official told National Review. “In the first round of DRP, 545 employees took the Fork in the Road. Thus far we’ve already received over 1,000 applications.”

Zeldin’s brief tenure at the agency has been defined by a drastic overhaul of existing climate-related rules and programs, which has been met with widespread praise among Republicans and scorn from Democrats and climate activists.

A few weeks into the job, he overhauled dozens of environmental regulations, including vehicle emissions standards, coal power plants, mercury and toxic air standards, and the Obama-era endangerment finding, which declared six greenhouses gases pose a threat to public safety and that combined emissions from motor vehicles contribute to greenhouse gas pollution. He has also upped pressure on Mexico to crack down on its wastewater pollution into San Diego’s Tijuana River Valley, and shuttered the National Environmental Museum and Education Center in March, citing low visitor attendance and taxpayer-funded operating costs as reasons for closure.

Zeldin’s restructuring changes coincide with spending cuts outlined by the White House to drastically shrink the federal bureaucracy. The administration’s fiscal 2026 budget framework includes plans to formally eliminate the EPA’s environmental justice office and cancel research grants the agency previously awarded to nongovernmental organizations.