Ranking Member Lofgren Statement on Administrator Zeldin Retaliating Against EPA Employees
(Washington, DC) – Today, it was reported that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin put over 130 EPA employees on administrative leave in retaliation for signing an open letter that criticized the dismantling of the agency under the Trump administration. The Administrator explicitly tied these personnel actions to the employees' signing of the letter, asserting that there is a “ZERO tolerance policy” for exercising First Amendment rights if federal employees’ free speech conflicts with this administration’s often illegal policy positions.
Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) made the following statement:
“Federal employees take an oath to the Constitution, and hundreds of them reaffirmed that oath when they signed a statement committing themselves to faithfully execute the statutory mission of EPA to protect human health and the environment. Apparently, Administrator Zeldin would prefer those civil servants take an oath to his and President Trump’s anti-science agenda to do precisely the opposite – to gut science-backed regulations, illegally terminate billions of grant dollars, and eliminate the Office of Research and Development to force a convenient ignorance of the damage this will cause. Taking steps to purge civil servants for expressing their own viewpoints on their own time – viewpoints that align with the mission of EPA itself – is deeply un-American. There is nothing this Administration won’t stoop to in their objective to prioritize polluters over public health.”
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