Particle.news
Download on the App Store
15 ARTICLES
·
last wk.

EPA Places About 140 Employees on Leave After Dissent Letter

The action intensifies scrutiny of the EPA’s management of internal dissent during its push to roll back environmental regulations.

FILE - The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) building is seen in Washington on Sept. 21, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
FILE - The Gibson Power Plant operates April 10, 2025, in Princeton, Ind. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel, File)
Lee Zeldin testifies before a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on his nomination to be Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on January 16, 2025.
People hold up signs during a rally in support of federal workers at the Plaza of the Americas next to the EPA Region 8 office in Denver on March 26, 2025. The EPA building is in the seen in front of the protesters. The American Federation of Government Employees Local 3607 held the rally to support Environmental Protection Agency workers. The event was organized by American Federation of Government Employees labor union members. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)

Overview

  • The EPA placed about 140 career staffers on temporary, paid non-duty status pending an administrative investigation after they signed a letter challenging Trump-era environmental policies.
  • Administrator Lee Zeldin invoked a zero-tolerance policy for employees allegedly misusing their official titles to undermine the administration’s energy dominance and deregulatory agenda.
  • The dissent letter gathered over 270 signatures—including roughly 170 current EPA employees—and outlined five key concerns from ignored science to dismantled research and environmental justice programs.
  • Internal EPA communications stress that the leave is not disciplinary but part of a formal probe into potential policy violations by the signatories.
  • Labor unions, environmental advocates and legal experts warn the move could chill scientific advocacy and spur First Amendment and Hatch Act challenges.