The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is eyeing downsizing by more than 1,000 employees, many of whom were hired by the Biden administration to work on climate change, air pollution and environmental regulation programs.
At least 1,100 EPA staffers who joined the agency within the last year received emails recently that informed them they could be fired “immediately,” given their “probationary/trial period” status, according to a copy of the message reviewed by The New York Times.
“Our goal is to be transparent,” EPA spokeswoman Molly Vaseliou told the outlet in a statement, saying that the agency’s incoming administrator Lee Zeldin on his first day “engaged directly with career staff across EPA’s headquarters — spanning two city blocks in downtown DC — listening to their insights and perspectives.”
“Ultimately, the goal is to create a more effective and efficient federal government that serves all Americans,” she added.
The apparent move to kick out probationary employees comes after President Trump’s Office of Personnel Management announced a government-wide return to-in-person-work, as well as buyouts for millions of federal workers not willing to comply.
“Operationally, it’s important to get employees back into the office and working and collaborating,” Zeldin told The Post in an exclusive interview last week. “I’ve been told that the EPA building is often at about 20% capacity on any given day. I’ll be able to confirm that firsthand once I’m in the building.”
Federal employee unions and critics of the administration’s energy policies have decried the efforts, with Environmental Protection Network Executive Director Michelle Roos characterizing the move to the Times as a “vindictive purge of public servants.”
Marie Owens-Powell, who runs the American Federation of Government Employees chapter representing around 8,000 EPA staffers, also told the outlet that despite the workers being on probationary status they still must be fired for cause — and her union is exploring legal options to possibly combat the move.
AFGE has already sued to halt an executive action making it easier to fire federal workers.
An email Monday morning also revealed that EPA staff were temporarily barred from accessing the agency’s internal network, which they need to get documents for their relevant work projects, but spokeswoman Vaseliou claimed that the issue was due to “an outage.”
Most of the EPA employees had been deputized to help with an array of clean energy projects funded as part of provisions tucked into former President Joe Biden’s signature climate law, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, and other legislation.
Pursuant to the law, Biden’s EPA distributed at least $27 billion in Greenhouse Gas Reduction Funds, Inside Climate News reported last week, noting that workers involved in the program had also been informed they could be terminated.
Up to $369 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act was committed to various environmental projects via grants for renewable energy companies and other green tax credits — the latter of which could cost US taxpayers up to $1.2 trillion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
In his sit-down with The Post, Zeldin revealed that some of the funding “in the name of climate change” had also gone to left-wing causes unrelated to environmental considerations — highlighting a $50 million grant to the Climate Justice Alliance, “even though their position is ‘the path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine.’”
The EPA’s budget was a little more than $9 billion in the last fiscal year, with a workforce of 15,130, up from the 14,172 workers recorded at the agency as of Sept. 30, 2020.
EPA reps did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
