17-05-2025
EPA pause on job reassignments underscores staff frustrations
EPA's pause on all job reassignments augments a chaotic, competitive, confusing process, agency employees say.
Staffers have been left guessing which positions would be eliminated and if they should apply to the new openings if they wanted to stay at EPA.
'We've been calling it the Hunger Games,' said one employee granted anonymity, referring to the fictional young adult dystopian series where teenagers are forced to compete for survival as part of a government-sponsored game. '1,500 employees scrambling for … we don't even know how many jobs.'
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The Office of Research and Development's more than 1,500 staffers have been encouraged to apply for the positions, under assumptions that a shuttered research center, restricted spending powers and draft plans to fire or reassign a majority of researchers were signs of the office's demise.
EPA press officials say ORD was not part of this phase of reorganization, but politically appointed leaders have encouraged research office employees to apply for the positions on the internal job board.
A little more than 50 positions were made available under five offices: the Office of Water; the Office of Air and Radiation; the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention; the Office of the Administrator; and the Office of Land and Emergency Management, which was not included in the reorganization plans announced earlier this month.
Multiple positions with the same title — industrial hygienist, public affairs specialist, IT specialist, to name a few — were made available in two or more offices, according to images of the postings reviewed by POLITICO's E&E News.
It is common for employees at EPA to share the same title. But the positions offered few details on what the job might entail.
'The interviews that were held were very general, without details as to the nature of the work, performance expectation,' said Joyce Howell, executive vice president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, the union representing the largest number of EPA employees.
In response to questions on how many people the agency is hoping to find to fill these positions and questions on if there will be another round of lateral reassignments, EPA's press office referred to the agency's policy to not speak on personnel actions.
'During one of the calls they made it sound like these offers are more like wish lists, because they aren't entirely sure how many positions they get to fill,' said the employee granted anonymity.
The employee said they were offered a position in the land office and was asked to fill out paperwork by Friday, before hearing about other positions they applied for in other offices.
'I absolutely believe they are competing against the other program offices,' the employee said.
During a Senate hearing this week on EPA's budget, agency Administrator Lee Zeldin dodged questions about target employment levels, adding that 'each office is going to be identifying how much that office needs.'
When Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) asked if 10,000 workers may be the goal for the agency, which had roughly 14,700 employees at the end of the Biden administration, Zeldin said that 'is lower than the actual number.'
More than 3,000 EPA staffers signed up to take one of the agency's 'early out' offers, as part of the Trump administration's mission to reduce the size and spending of the federal government. It is unclear how many people have left the agency on their own terms since President Donald Trump took office in January.
Despite the court-ordered temporary halt on EPA's reorganization plans, that does not affect the timeline to accept or decline agreement proposals being sent to the 2,617 employees who signed up for the agency's second deferred resignation offer, which closed last week, according to an internal memo.
Reach the reporter on Signal at eborst.64.
