The EPA has placed on administrative leave 139 employees who signed their names to a Monday letter that was sharply critical of the Trump administration.
“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,” Brigit Hirsch, an agency spokeswoman, said in a statement.
The EPA said the letter contains misleading information and doesn’t represent the views of the agency’s thousands of employees. The status of employees who signed the letter is pending an investigation.
The letter, addressed to EPA head Lee Zeldin, alleged the agency has used its communication platforms to “promote misinformation and overtly partisan rhetoric.” One example the signatories cited was a March statement laying out the administration’s deregulatory agenda, in which Zeldin referred to “the climate change religion.”
The letter also accused the EPA of ignoring scientific consensus to benefit polluters, turning its back on environmental justice communities, and promoting “a culture of fear, forcing staff to choose between their livelihood and well-being.”
Nicole Cantello, an EPA lawyer and president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 704, called the agency’s action “blatant retaliation.”
“They are targeting EPA employees who signed a letter dissenting from what the administration was doing,” said Cantello, who also signed the letter. “They were within their rights to do that. This is just a fishing expedition by the agency against these employees.”
The AFGE will defend the affected employees “vigorously,” Cantello said.
“Taking steps to purge civil servants for expressing their own viewpoints on their own time—viewpoints that align with the mission of EPA itself—is deeply un-American,” Rep.
(Added statement from Rep. Zoe Lofgren in ninth paragraph. )
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