WASHINGTON ― A top Republican senator is calling on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to reverse layoffs at a key government office aimed at preventing work-related injuries and illnesses.
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), the No. 4 Republican in the Senate, warned that the Trump administration’s cuts to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) would harm the health and well-being of coal miners, a key industry in her state.
“I believe in the President’s vision to right size our government, but I do not think eliminating the NIOSH coal programs and research will accomplish that goal,” Capito wrote in a letter to RFK Jr. on Tuesday. “The mission and work conducted by the specially trained NIOSH employees is not duplicative of any other government program.”
“I am concerned that the [reductions in force] at NIOSH will undermine the vital health programs important to so many West Virginians,” she added. “I urge you to bring back the NIOSH employees immediately so they can continue to support our nation’s coal industry.”
Capito said the reduction in force at the agency would negatively impact a program that studies respiratory disease and provides black lung screenings to coal miners. She warned that eliminating “dedicated scientists with years of training” would lead to the closure of specialized laboratories focused on miner safety.
“Decommissioning the labs will cost millions of taxpayer dollars. If the labs were to later be brought back online, additional taxpayer dollars would be spent to re-comply with numerous regulations and inspections,” the senator pointed out.
An HHS official told HuffPost that “NIOSH, along with its critical programs, will join the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA) alongside multiple agencies to improve coordination of health resources and recommendations for the prevention of work-related injury and illness.”
Earlier this month, RFK Jr. announced plans to lay off 10,000 employees as part of a major restructuring initiative at the agency. The news was met with chaos and confusion, with some employees being recalled in what the secretary acknowledged were “mistakes.” The reduction in force affects major departments, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health.
HHS has also halted critical data collection on cancer rates in firefighters, mother-to-baby transmission of HIV and syphilis, outbreaks of drug-resistant gonorrhea and cases of carbon monoxide poisoning, per Politico.
Few Republicans have publicly criticized the cuts to government programs, even as the Trump administration has taken a sledgehammer to the nation’s scientific community, laying off scientists and researchers and freezing their funding.
“A climate of fear has descended on the research community,” more than 1,900 scientists warned in a letter published earlier this month. “For over 80 years, wise investments by the US government have built up the nation’s research enterprise, making it the envy of the world.”
“Astoundingly, the Trump administration is destabilizing this enterprise by gutting funding for research, firing thousands of scientists, removing public access to scientific data, and pressuring researchers to alter or abandon their work on ideological grounds,” the letter added.