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EPA’s ‘environmental justice’ employees face layoffs this summer [1]
['Jory Heckman']
Date: 2025-04-22 11:15:09+00:00
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin defended the cancellation of environmental justice grants in a press conference at the EPA’s headquarters on Monday.
The Environmental Protection Agency employees working in “environmental justice” programs will face layoffs this summer.
The upcoming Reduction in Force will impact employees in the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights and regional environmental justice divisions, according to an email sent to employees Monday evening.
Assistant Deputy Administrator Travis Voyles, in an email obtained by Federal News Network, said the RIF “is necessary to align our workforce with the agency’s current and future needs and to ensure the efficient and effective operation of our programs.”
“With this action, EPA is delivering organizational improvements to the personnel structure that will directly benefit the American people and better advance the Agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment,” Voyles wrote.
The RIF will take effect on July 31. Impacted employees will receive formal notices at least 30 days before that date. Voyles said the Office of Personnel Management granted EPA an exemption from sending 60-day RIF notices.
“Our priority is to ensure a fair and transparent process while providing the necessary support to those affected,” he wrote. “You will be invited to attend informational meetings to gain further details about the RIF process, benefits and state-specific career transition assistance.”
EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin defended the cancellation of environmental justice grants in a press conference at the EPA’s headquarters on Monday.
“One of the ways that the term ‘environmental justice’ has been defined in a way that will get broad, bipartisan support is pointing out that there are communities that have been left behind that need help,” Zeldin told reporters. “The problem is, is that in the name of environmental justice, a dollar will get secured and not get spent on remediating that environmental issue. Instead, that dollar will get spent on a group to tell us that we should be spending a dollar to remediate the environmental issue.”
Zeldin said he’s cancelled environmental justice grants that aren’t “directly remediating” environmental issues. That includes rescinding a $50 million grant for Climate Justice Alliance, which he said advocates for a free Palestine.
“I would argue that if you’re going to spend $50 million in the name of environmental justice, instead of spending $50 million on Climate Justice Alliance, the $50 million should get spent actually remediating environmental issues,” he said
Climate Justice Alliance’s website states “the path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine.”
The Climate Justice Alliance said in February that it has been “ensuring that regions and communities most impacted by environmental harm receive the support and technical assistance they need to thrive.”
“I don’t stand here saying that I want to take a dollar from a left-wing organization and give it to a right-wing organization. I don’t want to do that. I’m not going to do that,” Zeldin said. “What I am saying is that if you’re going to spend a dollar on remediating environmental issues, it should go directly towards dealing with that issue.”
Zeldin announced earlier this month that he is shutting down the National Environmental Museum, a one-room space located within the agency’s headquarters.
Zeldin called the museum a “shrine to environmental justice and climate change” that tells an “ideologically slanted, partial story of the EPA.”
“I have pledged to be an exceptional steward of taxpayer dollars, so this shrine to EJ and climate change will now be shut down for good,” Zeldin said in a video.
Zeldin claimed the EPA spent $4 million under the Biden administration to build and curate the museum, which costs the agency $600,000 a year to operate.
“This museum claims EPA pursues its mission by ‘advancing justice, equity and civil rights compliance.’ A timeline of key events conveniently omits any mention of President Trump’s first administration,” he said.
Zeldin said that between May 2024 through March 2025, the museum saw 1,909 visitors.
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