EPA workforce 'particularly sensitive' to Trump's Schedule F plans

President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promise to easily lay off a large portion of the federal workforce could have a huge impact on employees at the Environmental Protection Agency, according to former EPA officials.

Former agency officials across various administrations told reporters during a phone call hosted by the UN. Environmental Protection Network Trump’s pledge to restore Schedule F and hire federal employees at will in policymaking roles will likely extend to a significant portion of the EPA’s roughly 15,000-employee workforce.

Jennifer Orme-Zavaleta, an EPN board member and former deputy administrator of EPA’s Office of Research and Development, told reporters that the EPA workforce is “particularly sensitive” to the return of Schedule F “like some other agencies around the world.” state.”

“By doing this, by politicizing the workforce and involving a lot of people (and there are a lot) in the rule-making process, if we lose that workforce, if they get fired for not complying, that’s part of the challenge,” Orme-Zavaleta said. “jumping high, and I think that’s something that even the Trump administration recognizes as a first pass,” he said.

Federal scientists at the EPA would also likely fall under Schedule F, said Jeremy Symons, EPN senior advisor and former climate policy advisor for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation.

“Trump is trying to tell the story of rogue bureaucrats, and public health scientists at the EPA are not the poster child for that narrative,” Symons said. “So Program F is in the same situation as scientists across the institution.”

Trump and his supporters made promises on the campaign trail Revitalize Schedule FAn executive order signed late in his first term that would reclassify tens of thousands of government workers as at-will employees exempt from civil service protections.

President Joe Biden canceled Trump’s Plan F in his first week in office. And earlier this year the Office of Personnel Management finalized an arrangement This will make it difficult for any subsequent administration to revive Program F.

But federal workforce experts expect OPM’s actions to occur when: Better slow down but don’t block it – Trump administration’s reinstatement of Program F.

It’s unclear how broadly Schedule F will affect federal employees’ careers. Initial estimates showed that as many as 50,000 federal employees serving in policy-related roles would fall under Schedule F coverage.

Mandy Gunasekara, a former EPA chief of staff under the Trump administration and author of Project 2025’s EPA chapter, told members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. in september He said he “absolutely” supports bringing back Schedule F.

Gunasekara, who wrote the book “You’re All Fired: A Southern Belle’s Guide to Restoring Federalism and Draining the Swamp,” told the House committee that the Program F estimate of 50,000 employees was likely an undercount.

“I think there are more civil servants who need to go, because the growth of the federal bureaucracy is actually getting in the way of institutions that are performing important duties like protecting public health and protecting the environment,” Gunasekara said.

Trump announced that he will nominate former Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., as EPA administrator.

“He will ensure fair and swift deregulation decisions that will unleash the power of American businesses while protecting higher environmental standards, including the cleanest air and water on the planet,” Trump wrote in a message. Statement of 11 November.

But beyond Plan F, the Trump administration could pursue other methods to reduce the size of the federal workforce, including the EPA. New York Times recently reported Some members of the Trump transition team discussed moving EPA headquarters outside Washington, D.C.

During Trump’s first term, many D.C. federal employees who worked at the Bureau of Land Management and parts of the Department of Agriculture left their respective agencies. to relocate to Grand Junction, Colorado, or Kansas City, respectively.

“You can’t see all this and expect an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty,” Orme-Zavaleta said. “At the center of the latest rhetoric is an effort to undermine America’s systems of checks and balances by bypassing Congress and also intimidating EPA employees in the hope that they will quit their jobs.”

Much of the EPA workforce is already eligible for retirement and may decide to retire before the incoming Trump administration, Orme-Zavaleta said. The end of each calendar year is a popular time for federal employees to retire.

“Normally we would expect to see people leave, and there may be people who say, ‘I don’t have the energy to go through another round of this administration,’ so they may choose to go ahead and retire,” he said. “I guess we’ll have to see how the numbers develop over the next few months.”

Predictions of a mass exodus of retirement-eligible federal employees have continued through many administrations, but a “retirement tsunami” has yet to occur. Federal employees didn’t do this More retirees under first Trump administration or The height of the COVID-19 epidemic.

EPA employees tend to stay on the job for about five years after their retirement eligibility date, Orme-Zavaleta said, adding that they stay with the agency for 12 years after becoming eligible to retire.

Career EPA employees typically brief the incoming presidential administration on the decisions new agency leaders must make in the first 100 days and ensure continuity of government operations.

Each new administration typically sends landing teams to each agency to receive briefings from career officials.

“If people leave, they will lose that historical knowledge, which will further hinder EPA from doing what it needs to do,” Orme-Zavaleta said.

The George W. Bush administration and former EPA Administrator Christie Todd Whitman attended transition meetings with the outgoing Clinton administration, Symons said.

“We spent months preparing a briefing presentation and he asked a lot of questions. “This wasn’t just an opportunity for him to hear from us, it was an opportunity to get us to work to answer the questions he wanted answered,” he said.

But the Trump transition team has not yet sign memorandum of understanding It will allow some of these routine transition procedures with the General Services Administration or the White House to begin.

“The truth is, there is nothing typical about this transition,” Symons said.

During the first Trump administration, former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt did not agree to any regulatory briefings by career officials before taking office, said Elizabeth Sutherland, an EPN volunteer and former director of the Office of Science and Technology within the EPA Office of Water.

Instead, he said, Pruitt received a briefing from Republican select committee officials.

“He had a list of rules that he was going to roll back, and then he announced it to us,” Sutherland said. “We haven’t had the opportunity to brief Scott Pruitt and try to explain why some of our rules should stay the way they are and defend against the allegations he’s heard from political donors,” Sutherland said.

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