The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) placed 139 employees on administrative leave Thursday after they signed a public “declaration of dissent” against the agency.
The affected employees, described by the agency as “career bureaucrats,” represent less than 1% of the agency’s roughly 18,000 person workforce and have been put on leave pending an investigation.
“The Environmental Protection Agency has a zero-tolerance policy for career bureaucrats unlawfully undermining, sabotaging, and undercutting the administration’s agenda as voted for by the great people of this country last November,” an EPA spokesperson told The Post.
The four-page dissent letter, posted on the website for anti-Trump activist group Standup for Science, lays out several concerns EPA employees have with Administrator Lee Zeldin.
Under Zeldin’s leadership, the EPA has been “undermining public trust,” “ignoring scientific consensus to benefit polluters” and “promoting a culture of fear,” the signatories claim.
The letter was “written and signed by EPA employees across Offices, Regions, and Labs in our personal capacity, on our own time, and without Agency resources,” according to the document.
“We sign this declaration both as concerned citizens and dedicated civil servants,” the letter states. “In addition to the named signers, we include anonymous signers and speak for countless others at EPA who share our concerns, but who chose not to sign their names for fear of retaliation.”
The document currently notes 620 anonymous individuals as signatories and some 4,500 “EPA supporters” as endorsers.
Initially, more than 170 EPA employees attached their names to the dissent document, the Associated Press reported.
The EPA responded to the letter, which first became public on Monday, earlier this week.
“Policy decisions are a result of a process where Administrator Zeldin is briefed on the latest research and science by EPA’s career professionals, and the vast majority who are consummate professionals who take pride in the work this agency does day in and day out,” an EPA spokesperson said.
Suspended employees were reportedly told by the agency that being put on leave and investigated was “not a disciplinary action.”
One EPA employee in North Carolina who signed the letter claims she was “escorted out of their building” after being put on leave.
“I’m considered an extremely high performing employee, so having management inform me that I needed to be escorted out wrecked me,” Scarlett VanDyke told CNN. “I’m shocked that signing a letter of dissent regarding the direction EPA’s administration is taking was met with such blatant retaliation.”
