The union representing workers at the Environmental Protection Agency is demanding that the Trump administration reinstate more than 100 workers who were placed on administrative leave for criticizing the agency’s leadership.
The EPA said it is investigating 139 employees who had signed a public “declaration of dissent” addressed to Lee Zeldin, the agency’s administrator. The letter condemned Zeldin for focusing on “harmful deregulation, mischaracterization of previous EPA actions, and disregard for scientific expertise” as the administration loosens environmental standards.
Justin Chen, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, which represents 8,000 agency employees, said the union was still waiting for the agency to provide a full list of the workers placed on leave. He called the administration’s move “retaliatory in nature” and a possible violation of federal whistleblower rights.
“We believe this is a frivolous investigation and have demanded that these individuals be returned to regular [work] status,” Chen told HuffPost.
He said sending a letter to the boss offering a critique of leadership was a matter of “protected speech.”
“That’s what we believe these people basically did,” he said. “That in itself doesn’t justify an investigation into them, or any sort of disciplinary measure just for voicing an opinion as to the direction of the agency.”
The letter, posted publicly last week, was organized by Stand Up for Science, a nonprofit created this year to combat the president’s cuts to government-funded research and science initiatives. Although some signatories were anonymous, many included their names and work affiliations, including those from government agencies such as the EPA.
“The Environmental Protection Agency has a zero-tolerance policy for career bureaucrats unlawfully undermining, sabotaging, and undercutting the administration’s agenda as voted for by the great people of this country last November,” an agency spokesperson said in an email.
Zeldin, a one-time moderate GOP congressman who’s evolved into a MAGA loyalist, told the right-wing news outlets Breitbart and the Daily Caller last week that some agency employees had signed a letter “riddled with misinformation.”
Chen, who is also an EPA employee, signed the letter as an individual but was not placed on leave. He suspects that this is due to the legal protections afforded to union officials. He said other union officials who signed were still at work as well.
“I thought the criticisms [in the letter] were reflective of the reality of the situation,” he said.
The EPA under Trump has undertaken what its own leadership has boasted to be “the biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history,” trying to roll back rules aimed at reducing carbon emissions and combatting climate change. Last month it proposed repealing regulations meant to limit pollution from coal- and natural gas-fueled power plants.
Like other federal agencies, the EPA has also lost a significant number of workers as the Trump administration tries to push them out the door.
More than 3,000 applied for either the White House’s “deferred resignation” offer, which enabled employees to leave their jobs and be paid through September, or other early retirement programs, according to E&E News. The EPA has around 15,000 employees in total.
The attrition comes amid a Trump-instituted hiring freeze that has limited the number of new workers who can come on board.
Chen said many EPA employees feel overworked due to the drop in manpower – a squeeze he expected to be worsened by the suspensions following the public letter.
“One hundred and thirty-nine is not an insignificant number,” he said. “All of these people have incredibly important jobs, especially with the amount of vacancies we have right now.”
