The EPA may very well be the following goal of the Trump Administration’s mass layoffs, though it is unclear how deep the cuts would possibly go.
As reported by The New York Instances, President Trump mentioned throughout a Wednesday cupboard assembly that Lee Zeldin, the EPA administrator, deliberate to fireplace 65% of EPA workers, which company officers later admitted would forestall the company from functioning. It is consistent with the arbitrary slashing of federal employment and spending undertaken by Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
In response to the NY Instances, Trump mentioned Zeldin “thinks he will be reducing 65 or so % of the folks from environmental. And we’ll velocity up that course of, too, on the similar time.”
President Donald Trump (Picture courtesy Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons)
Inside minutes, EPA managers mentioned they acquired a White Home memo telling them to organize for mass layoffs. Trump’s 65% determine was quickly contradicted by an EPA official, who instructed reporters that the President has been referring to total company price range cuts, not a 65% discount in personnel.
The EPA had 15,123 full-time workers on the finish of December, in keeping with the newest federal price range. A 65% employees minimize would imply greater than 10,000 jobs misplaced, which might hobble the company’s potential to carry out not solely regulatory capabilities however its environmental-hazard response, in keeping with Mary Owens Powell, president of the American Federation of Authorities Workers.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk at Cybercab occasion (screenshot) – Oct. 2024
“It means 65% much less folks obtainable to reply to pure disasters, that are taking place extra incessantly, not much less. It could imply 65% much less folks to reply to hazardous cleanups, to do air monitoring and lead abatement,” Powell instructed the Instances, including that the administration had not knowledgeable the union of staffing cuts.
Such cuts can be in step with the Trump Administration’s agenda of attacking federal paperwork typically, and something associated to climate-change coverage specifically.
The administration has moved to freeze funding for a nationwide EV charging community—a lot to the chagrin of automakers. California is pushing forward with its personal charger buildout regardless of that, and it could be a tactic different states might want to undertake to proceed progress.