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EPA fires or reassigns hundreds of staffers

News Feed
Wednesday, April 23, 2025

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to fire or reassign more than 450 staffers working on environmental justice issues, it said Tuesday.Why it matters: The large-scale changes could effectively end much of the EPA's work tackling pollution in historically disadvantaged communities.It's part of the Trump administration's effort to vastly shrink the federal workforce. EPA has around 15,000 employees.Driving the news: EPA notified roughly 280 employees that they will be fired in a "reduction in force." Another 175 who perform "statutory functions" will be reassigned.The employees come from the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, the Office of Inclusive Excellence, and EPA regional offices."EPA is taking the next step to terminate the Biden-Harris Administration's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Environmental Justice arms of the agency," a spokesperson said.Between the lines: The firings will likely see challenges from congressional Democrats and the employees themselves.EPA had previously put many environmental justice staffers on administrative leave.Administrator Lee Zeldin, during a Monday news conference, defended the agency's broader efforts to cut environmental justice grant programs, arguing the money is ill-spent."The problem is that, in the name of environmental justice, a dollar will get secured and not get spent on remediating that environmental issue," he said.

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to fire or reassign more than 450 staffers working on environmental justice issues, it said Tuesday.Why it matters: The large-scale changes could effectively end much of the EPA's work tackling pollution in historically disadvantaged communities.It's part of the Trump administration's effort to vastly shrink the federal workforce. EPA has around 15,000 employees.Driving the news: EPA notified roughly 280 employees that they will be fired in a "reduction in force." Another 175 who perform "statutory functions" will be reassigned.The employees come from the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, the Office of Inclusive Excellence, and EPA regional offices."EPA is taking the next step to terminate the Biden-Harris Administration's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Environmental Justice arms of the agency," a spokesperson said.Between the lines: The firings will likely see challenges from congressional Democrats and the employees themselves.EPA had previously put many environmental justice staffers on administrative leave.Administrator Lee Zeldin, during a Monday news conference, defended the agency's broader efforts to cut environmental justice grant programs, arguing the money is ill-spent."The problem is that, in the name of environmental justice, a dollar will get secured and not get spent on remediating that environmental issue," he said.

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to fire or reassign more than 450 staffers working on environmental justice issues, it said Tuesday.

Why it matters: The large-scale changes could effectively end much of the EPA's work tackling pollution in historically disadvantaged communities.

  • It's part of the Trump administration's effort to vastly shrink the federal workforce. EPA has around 15,000 employees.

Driving the news: EPA notified roughly 280 employees that they will be fired in a "reduction in force." Another 175 who perform "statutory functions" will be reassigned.

  • The employees come from the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, the Office of Inclusive Excellence, and EPA regional offices.
  • "EPA is taking the next step to terminate the Biden-Harris Administration's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Environmental Justice arms of the agency," a spokesperson said.

Between the lines: The firings will likely see challenges from congressional Democrats and the employees themselves.

  • EPA had previously put many environmental justice staffers on administrative leave.
  • Administrator Lee Zeldin, during a Monday news conference, defended the agency's broader efforts to cut environmental justice grant programs, arguing the money is ill-spent.
  • "The problem is that, in the name of environmental justice, a dollar will get secured and not get spent on remediating that environmental issue," he said.
Read the full story here.
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Related News

EPA firing 280 staffers who fought pollution in overburdened neighborhoods

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will fire 280 staffers who worked on tackling pollution in overburdened and underserved communities and will reassign another 175. These staffers worked in an area known as “environmental justice,” which helps communities that face a disproportionate amount of pollution exposure, especially minority or low-income communities.  The EPA has framed its...

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will fire 280 staffers who worked on tackling pollution in overburdened and underserved communities and will reassign another 175. These staffers worked in an area known as “environmental justice,” which helps communities that face a disproportionate amount of pollution exposure, especially minority or low-income communities.  The EPA has framed its efforts to cut these programs — including its previous closure of environmental justice offices — as part of a push to end diversity programming in the government. Supporters of the agency's environmental justice work have pointed out that Black communities face particularly high pollution levels and that the programs also help white Americans, especially if they are poor.  “EPA is taking the next step to terminate the Biden-Harris Administration’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Environmental Justice arms of the agency,” an EPA spokesperson said in a written statement.   “Today, EPA notified diversity, equity, and inclusion and environmental justice employees that EPA will be conducting a Reduction in Force,” the spokesperson said. “The agency also notified certain statutory and mission essential employees that they are being reassigned to other offices through the ‘transfer of function’ procedure also outlined in [the Office of Personnel Management’s] Handbook and federal regulations” The firings will be effective July 31, according to E&E News, which first reported that they were occurring. The news comes as the Trump administration has broadly sought to cut the federal workforce. The administration has previously indicated that it planned to cut 65 percent of the EPA’s overall budget. It’s not clear how much of this will be staff, though according to a plan reviewed by Democrat House staff, the EPA is considering the termination of as many as about 1,100 employees from its scientific research arm.  Meanwhile, as part of their reductions in force, other agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Veterans Affairs have fired tens of thousands of staffers. The EPA is smaller than these agencies, with a total of more than 15,000 employees as of January.  Nearly 170 environmental justice staffers were previously placed on paid leave while the agency was “in the process of evaluating new structure and organization.”

Pollution
Government
Health

The Polluting Paper Mill That Helped Inspire the First Earth Day

Earth Day coordinator Denis Hayes grew up in Camas, Washington, surrounded by natural beauty and unchecked pollution. The post The Polluting Paper Mill That Helped Inspire the First Earth Day appeared first on The Revelator.

Every day drivers head north on Route 205 out of Portland, Oregon, cross the mighty Columbia River and the state line, and arrive in Washington. Many of them will immediately head east, where on a clear day they’ll soon see snow-capped Mt. Hood looming over Highway 14. Also known as the Lewis & Clark Highway, this busy road will take them toward the suburban cities of Camas and Washougal. But as they arrive in Camas and cross a narrow bridge, something else will loom over the scenic view: an enormous paper mill on the river’s edge. That paper mill, which at one point processed hundreds of tons a day, has been a defining element of Camas for more than a century. The town grew up around it. Residents walked down the hill to work there and sent their kids up the hill to go to school, where the local basketball team is still called the Papermakers (complete with a mascot, the Mean Machine, that looks like an anthropomorphic paper press). A portion of the mill in downtown Camas. Photo: John R. Platt/The Revelator Today the mill, now owned by Koch Industries, is a shadow of its former self. Relatively few people still work there. Much of the 660-acre property lies fallow. But its legacy lives on — in the history and pride of Camas, in the minds of its residents, and in the soil and water, which many people worry carry the burden of generations of pollution. And although few realize it, the paper mill’s legacy also exists on the national stage. In many ways it inspired the first Earth Day. Famed environmental advocate Denis Hayes coordinated the first national Earth Day in 1970. He later founded the Earth Day Network and became a leader in solar power and energy policy. But before that he grew up in Camas, which at the time had an occasionally noxious reputation. “If you talked to someone in Portland and mentioned Camas, universally the response was, ‘Oh yeah, that’s where the stink comes from,’ ” Hayes, now 80, recalled during a recent Zoom presentation to an in-person audience at the Camas Public Library. “The whole region was known for the stink of this uncontrolled paper mill.” The stink came from “vast quantities of uncontrolled sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide” emitted by the mill. Those pollutants came back down in the form of acid rain — and as Hayes noted, it rains quite a bit in the Pacific Northwest. Hayes speaking to Camas residents over Zoom. Photo: John R. Platt/The Revelator The effect was immediately visible in town, where the roofs of cars corroded under the acidic onslaught. “People began to ask, well, if it’s doing that to my car, what’s it doing to me,” Hayes said. “The answer, with regards to the automobiles, was that instead of reducing the pollution, they put a shower at the end of the parking lot” to rinse cars before they drove home. Wildlife was affected, too. “Every now and then you’d go down to the Columbia River slough and find scores of dead fish, in some cases hundreds of dead fish, just floating there,” Hayes said. Camas had its good sides, of course. “What I did have growing up was the ability to walk through some of the most magnificent forests on Earth and to ride my bicycle down through the Columbia River Gorge and the spectacular scenery,” Hayes recalled. But even there the paper mill took a toll. “You’d go out in the forest and go hiking in the summer, in these astonishingly beautiful Douglas fir forests, and then two years later you go back there and it is almost clearcut. There was this catastrophic approach to clearing out natural resources.” The beauty and the destruction “came together and sort of made me think, not too profoundly, that it must be possible to make paper without destroying the planet,” he said. Camas was just one of Hayes’ influences, and Hayes was one of many people behind the first Earth Day and the environmental successes that followed. But what followed remains significant. “The context then was one where we were pretty highly motivated to try to get some kinds of regulations someplace,” Hayes recalled. “This is not a personal accomplishment. There were a huge number of things that were involved in this, including the presidential aspirations of a senator named Ed Muskie.” Posters about Hayes and the first Earth Day at Camas Public Library. Photo: John R. Platt/The Revelator After the first Earth Day, the organizers — who had formed a nonprofit called Environmental Action — launched what they called “the Dirty Dozen” campaign targeting congressional representatives with bad records on environmental issues. “We tried to take out several of the worst members of Congress, and we successfully defeated seven of 12 incumbents,” Hayes said. “It is really, really hard to beat an incumbent member of Congress. And we managed to take out seven of 12. And it was clear that we were the margin of a victory in each of those cases.” Among the defeated politicians was Rep. George Fallon. “At that time Fallon was the chairman of the House Public Works Committee. If you wanted to have a federal building, you wanted to have a prison, a courthouse, a dam, any kind of public work in your district anywhere across the country, you had to have the permission of the guy who chaired that committee. When we took out George Fallon, clearly with an environmental campaign, that absolutely transformed the House of Representatives.” One month after that election, Muskie helped introduce what would become the Clean Air Act. “And the Clean Air Act passed the Senate on a voice vote and passed the House of Representatives 434 to 1. There was one member of both Houses of the American Congress that voted against the Clean Air Act. Something that would have been inconceivable in 1969 became unstoppable in 1970,” Hayes said. “Those are the kinds of magic moments that can happen in a democracy where everything, just like a school of fish is going in this direction and suddenly it goes in a different direction,” he continued. “It was my thrill to have been part of a handful of those occasions.” A new generation of Camas residents — in fact, multiple generations — has taken the lesson of the first Earth Day to heart. Several residents recently came together to form the Camas Earth Day Society, which organized Hayes’ talk at the local library and is working toward a sustainable future in their home town. They’ve worked with local students, many of whom asked Hayes questions during the event. The organization has also held an art show, organized a native pollinator display, and raised awareness of clean air and water issues in Camas. They have ambitious dreams that boil down to a simple truth, both in Camas and around the world: Everyone can make a difference. Fifty-five years after the first Earth Day, the future of environmental protection has darkened once again. The Trump administration has enabled corporate polluters, slashed climate programs and budgets, and seeks to slash and burn practically all environmental regulations. But the crowd that gathered earlier this month at the Camas library — people young and old — came together despite those threats, ready to talk about solar power, protecting native plants, improving water quality, reducing pollution, and mobilizing for the future. More than one T-shirt that night read “Earth Day Is Every Day” — a sign that the seeds of that first day continue to sprout. Previously in The Revelator: Comics for Earth: Eight New Graphic Novels About Saving the Planet and Celebrating Wildlife The post The Polluting Paper Mill That Helped Inspire the First Earth Day appeared first on The Revelator.

Pollution
Climate
Forests

New Clues From Penguins Warn of a Global Mercury Crisis

Rutgers’ research reveals the widespread presence of mercury pollution in Earth’s polar regions. In 1962, environmentalist and author Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, warning the world about the dangers of the pesticide DDT. Her work drew attention to the reproductive harm it caused in birds, most notably the bald eagle, and inspired widespread environmental action. [...]

Rutgers’ research reveals the widespread presence of mercury pollution in Earth’s polar regions. In 1962, environmentalist and author Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, warning the world about the dangers of the pesticide DDT. Her work drew attention to the reproductive harm it caused in birds, most notably the bald eagle, and inspired widespread environmental action. [...]

Pollution
Crisis

How wild fig trees can help monitor mercury pollution

Trees nearest the mines had higher concentrations of mercury in their rings. Passive air sampling confirmed the mercury measurements.

Wild fig trees may provide an inexpensive, effective way to monitor mercury pollution near artisanal and small-scale gold mining sites throughout the Global South, a recent study suggests.Published in Frontiers in Environmental Science, the analysis looked at whether fig trees might serve as a biomonitoring tool near small-scale gold mines. The mines, largely located in South America, Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, use liquid mercury to separate ore and gold, unleashing high levels of mercury pollution. The contaminated air generated by burning mercury-gold amalgam to isolate gold can endanger health in humans and animals. But the industry — largely unregulated — lacks reliable monitoring data, the researchers write.

Pollution
Animals
Science

In “Cancer Alley,” Black Communities Get All the pollution, But Few of the Jobs

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Residents of the mostly Black communities sandwiched between chemical plants along the lower Mississippi River have long said they get most of the pollution but few of the jobs produced by the region’s vast petrochemical industry.  A new study led by Tulane University […]

This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Residents of the mostly Black communities sandwiched between chemical plants along the lower Mississippi River have long said they get most of the pollution but few of the jobs produced by the region’s vast petrochemical industry. A new study led by Tulane University backs up that view, revealing stark racial disparities across the US’s petrochemical workforce. Inequity was especially pronounced in Louisiana, where people of color were underrepresented in both high- and low-paying jobs at chemical plants and refineries.  “It was really surprising how consistently people of color didn’t get their fair share of jobs in the petrochemical industry,” said Kimberly Terrell, a research scientist with the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic. “No matter how you slice or dice the data by states, metro areas or parishes, the data’s consistent.” Toxic air pollution in Louisiana’s petrochemical corridor, an area often referred to as “Cancer Alley,” has risen in recent years. The burdens of pollution have been borne mostly by the state’s Black and poor communities, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.  The Tulane study’s findings match what Cancer Alley residents have suspected for decades, said Joy Banner, co-founder of the Descendants Project, a nonprofit that advocates for Black communities in the parishes between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. “You hear it a lot—that Black people are not getting the jobs,” she said. “But to have the numbers so well documented, and to see just how glaring they are—that was surprising.” People of color were underrepresented in all of the highest-paying jobs among the 30 states with a large petrochemical industry presence, but Louisiana and Texas had “the most extreme disparities,” according to the study, which was published in the journal Ecological Economics.  While several states had poor representation on the upper pay scale, people of color were typically overrepresented in the lower earnings tiers.  In Texas, nearly 60 percent of the working-age population is nonwhite, but people of color hold 39 percent of higher-paying positions and 57 percent of lower-paying jobs in the chemical industry.  Louisiana was the only state in which people of color are underrepresented in both pay categories. People who aren’t white make up 41 percent of the working-age population but occupy just 21 percent of higher-paying jobs and about 33 percent of lower-paid jobs.  The study relied on data from the US Census Bureau, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Louisiana Economic Development. The chemical industry disputed the study’s findings. “We recognize the importance of examining equity in employment, however, this study offers an incomplete and misleading portrayal of our industry and its contributions,” David Cresson, president and CEO of the Louisiana Chemical Association, said in a statement.  Cresson pointed to several industry-supported workforce development programs, scholarships and science camps aimed at “closing the training gap in Louisiana.” But the study indicates education and training levels aren’t at the root of underrepresentation among states or metro areas. Louisiana’s education gap was modest, with college attainment at 30 percent for white residents and 20 percent for people of color. In places like Lake Charles and St. John the Baptist Parish, where petrochemical jobs are common, the gap was minimal—five percentage points or less. The industry’s investments in education are “just public relations spin,” Banner said.  “The amount of money they’re investing in schools and various programs pales in comparison to how much they’re profiting in our communities,” she said. “We sacrifice so much and get so little in return.” Louisiana is also getting little from generous tax breaks aimed at boosting employment, the study found.  The state’s Industrial Tax Exemption Program has granted 80 percent to 100 percent property tax exemptions to companies that promise to create new jobs. For each job created in Cameron Parish, where large natural gas ports have been built in recent years, companies were exempted from almost $590,000 in local taxes. In St. John, each job equated to about $1 million in uncollected tax revenue. “This tradeoff of pollution in exchange for jobs was never an equal trade,” said Gianna St. Julien, one of the study’s authors. “But this deal is even worse when the overwhelming majority of these companies’ property taxes are not being poured back into these struggling communities.”   This coverage was made possible through a partnership between Grist and Verite News, a nonprofit news organization producing in-depth journalism in underserved communities in the New Orleans area.

Pollution
Chemicals
Climate

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