EPA has fired hundreds of its employees, many of whom are just starting their careers at the agency, as the Trump administration pares down the federal workforce.
The staffers let go by EPA were on “probationary” status, who generally have less than a year of federal service. Those employees still in their trial periods can be fired more easily by the agency.
“EPA has terminated 388 probationary employees after a thorough review of agency functions in accordance with President Trump’s executive orders,” EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou told POLITICO’s E&E News on Friday.
That is a significant chunk of the agency’s workforce that is no longer employed. EPA has roughly 16,000 employees on the payroll.
The agency followed standard procedures to ensure those affected were notified of their status, according to Vaseliou.
“President Trump was elected with a mandate to create a more effective and efficient federal government that serves all Americans, and we are doing just that,” the EPA spokesperson said.
The probationary employees fired by EPA began receiving emails Friday afternoon notifying them they were let go, according to messages viewed by E&E News.
“The Agency finds that you have failed to demonstrate fully your qualifications for continued employment,” the email said. It continued that EPA was “removing” them from their position, effective 5 p.m. EST Friday. Fired staffers were ordered to turn in their EPA badge, laptop, parking hang tag, travel credit card, office keys and “any other EPA property” in their possession “immediately.”
The agency’s mass firing follows a purge of trial-period staffers across the federal government this week. The Interior and Energy departments as well as other agencies began notifying those employees that they were out of job, with some civil servants waking up to those notices Friday.
The Office of Personnel Management had directed agencies to fire their probationary employees, which are seen as another move by President Donald Trump and tech mogul Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency to cut down the civil service.
Their “deferred resignation” program closed Wednesday night, which roughly 75,000 federal employees signed up for, according to OPM.
EPA staffers on probationary status were warned in an email from the agency last month about their tenuous situation. “As a probationary/trial period employee, the agency has the right to immediately terminate you,” said the Jan. 29 message.
Guidance from OPM called on agencies to submit lists of those staffers by Jan. 24. That list caused significant strife within EPA as some of the names presented last week to staff were mistakenly designated as probationary employees.
But it appears not all of EPA’s trial-period staffers have been let go.
OPM data shows as of May 2024, EPA had close to 1,600 employees with less than a year of federal service.
In a CNN interview earlier this month, Administrator Lee Zeldin said around 1,700 EPA probationary employees received that January email warning them of their status.
EPA’s staff has already take a big hit this month. The agency placed 168 employees on administrative leave who worked for its environmental justice programs.
Firing the agency’s trial-period staffers will undermine the previous administration’s rebuilding effort at EPA. More than 6,000 full-time employees were brought on at the agency during former President Joe Biden’s term.
Zealan Hoover, formerly EPA’s implementation director for the last administration, told reporters earlier Friday firing thousands of EPA employees would cripple the agency’s basic functions.
“They say that they want to fight waste, fraud and abuse, and yet they are firing many of the staff who were hired to be audit specialists, project officers and grant specialists,” Hoover said.
“This is not an efficiency operation,” he added. “This is taking an ax to agencies that this administration has long attempted to defund through congressional action and has never had the votes to defund in Congress.”
Contact Reporter Kevin Bogardus on Signal at KevinBogardus.89
This version includes EPA’s updated number of terminated employees.
