More than 1,000 EPA employees, including scientists involved in climate change research and policy, have been put on immediate notice by the Trump administration.
Prior to taking office, President Donald Trump promised to bulldoze many environmental policies that he said were wasteful spending of taxpayer dollars and would instead open up protected lands to oil and gas drilling to boost the economy.
The New York Times reported that the Trump Administration notified more than 1,100 EPA employees that they could be dismissed ‘immediately’ at any time.
Many of those put on notice are scientists and experts who oversee research and enforce policies involved in air pollution, hazardous waste cleanup and environmental emergency response.
Members of two highly influential EPA advisory committees tasked with providing scientific guidance to the head of the agency were already ousted in January.
In addition to these staffing changes, the Trump administration has started removing or burying any mentions of climate change across US government websites.
The main climate change section on the Department of State’s website has vanished, as has the climate change page on the White House‘s website.
Similar changes have been made to the websites of the Department of Defense, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Transportation.
‘We should plan for the worst,’ Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, told The Guardian.
‘The keys to the car have been given to the polluters and fossil fuel plutocrats and they intend to drive it off the climate cliff.’
The two EPA advisory committees that suffered staff cuts were the Science Advisory Board (SAB) and the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC).
The SAB is a group of independent scientists that provides the agency with guidance and expertise to make sure all EPA regulations are science-driven.
The CASAC is similar, but this group of sciences advises the agency specifically on issues of air quality to provide a technical bases for the EPA’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards.
During his first weeks in office, President Trump began dismantling the EPA by gutting its workforce and stocking the agency with former lawyers and lobbyists for the oil and chemical industries.
Now, two sources familiar with the matter have told the New York Times that the dismissed staff would be replaced with political appointees and it should take effect this week.
EPA spokeswoman Molly Vaseliou said in a statement: ‘As is common practice and has become more prevalent across administrations, EPA updated its organizational structure to match other federal agencies.’
David Uhlmann, who led EPA enforcement under the Biden administration, said that ‘when viewed alongside everything else taking place, [the changes] are yet another unfortunate attack on public servants who have dedicated their careers to public health and environmental protection.’
Indeed, experts say these decisions should strengthen the Trump administration’s influence over aspects of the agency that were previously overseen by nonpartisan experts who served on both sides of the aisle.
In addition, they should make it easier for his administration to bypass Congress. That’s because people in charge of these areas normally need Senate approval, but Trump’s new appointees could take on leadership roles without that.
EPA employees who have been at the agency for less than one year received an email Wednesday stating they were likely on a ‘probationary/ trial period,’ according to an email reviewed by NBC News.
‘As a probationary/ trial period employee, the agency has the right to immediately terminate you,’ the email reads.
‘The process for probationary removal is that you receive a notice of termination, and your employment is ended immediately.’
The EPA’s website shows that it employs more than 15,000 people. Those who are not terminated could face demotion.
Before the Trump administration, long-time EPA employees held the agency’s second-in-command positions for each office, called ‘principal deputy assistant administrators’ (PDAA).
Each PDAA has different responsibilities depending on which office they lead.
In general, they manage support functions for the agency such as human resources, grants and facility operations.
Additionally, In the event that their the head of their office — a Senate-confirmed assistant administrator — is absent, the PDAA takes their place as the acting head.
Anonymous sources told the Times the EPA employees currently serving as PDAAs received notice last week that they would be demoted to ‘deputy assistant administrators,’ but their salaries and benefits would not change.
This change to senior management ranks affects four key EPA offices.
Those include two offices that directly tie into climate policy: the Office of Research and Development, which oversees scientific research; and the Office of Enforcement and Compliance, which enforces environmental laws.
The other two offices are the Office of Land and Emergency Management, which oversees cleanups at contaminated sites and responds to environmental emergencies; and the Office of Mission Support, which manages human resources, grants and contracts.
While sources said the change could happen in days, Trump has yet to name any political appointees to replace the PDAAs.
This isn’t the first time a president has put political appointees in roles that allow them to bypass Senate approval while carrying out the administration’s agenda.
Former President Joe Biden appointed environmental lawyer Joseph Goffman as the PDAA of the EPA’s air pollution office.
During his three-year stint at the agency, he helped write strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and vehicles, and was later confirmed by the Senate in January 2024.
But Trump’s critics argue the EPA appointments he adds will make previously neutral aspects of the agency more partisan.
Goffman’s appointment, by comparison, was to an office that that mainly manages federal regulation and therefore already largely reflects the president’s objectives.
