EXCLUSIVE — President Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency carried out research subjecting small animals to harmful conditions to study the effects of wildfires on things such as “mental health crises” and “vulnerable communities.”

The experiments, conducted between 2022 and 2024, involved subjecting rats and mice to “extreme heat exposures,” simulated wildfire smoke, and conditions such as solitary confinement to gain information on the impacts of wildfires and climate change, according to a research brief compiled by the White Coat Waste Project and obtained exclusively by the Washington Examiner. Multiple groups oppose federally funded animal experimentation on ethical grounds. The White Coat Waste Project, for example, recently released a four-point plan to phase out animal testing, which it argues will end instances of animal cruelty and save taxpayers billions.