EPA has begun notifying employees they are on furlough status as the agency draws on leftover funds to stay afloat during the federal government shutdown.
Those notices advised staffers they’re entering “non-duty, non-pay status,” effective Thursday, according to records viewed by POLITICO’s E&E News.
The notices said EPA could no longer incur “further financial obligations” and “a number of EPA employees will be placed in a furlough status.”
How many EPA employees have been furloughed so far is not clear. The agency didn’t answer questions about the number of staffers being sent home or whether EPA had exhausted its available funds to stay open.
EPA spokesperson Brigit Hirsch said the agency was operating according to its shutdown or “lapse” plan. Under that plan, once carryover funds expire, EPA could furlough more than 13,000 employees until the shutdown ends.
Multiple EPA employees, who have been granted anonymity because they fear retaliation, said they’ve been told this is the first phase of furloughs at the agency. But details have been sparse, leaving employees in a new phase of limbo.
Since the shutdown began last week, EPA staffers have been reporting to work as usual. Exemption notices sent to many employees, potentially the entire staff, gave no timeline on when furloughs would start.
EPA’s largest union denounced staff being furloughed.
“Furloughing EPA employees is not just an attack on federal workers, but an attack on every American’s right to clean air, safe water, and uncontaminated soil,” said Justin Chen, president of American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, in a statement.
Chen added, “When the essential services that EPA workers provide stop, that means pollution monitoring, toxic cleanup, and other public health protections stall and communities suffer.”
The union leader also took issue with the White House questioning whether furloughed government workers would receive back pay once the funding lapse ends. EPA’s own guidance indicates they will be paid in accordance with a law President Donald Trump signed after the 2019 shutdown (see related story).
“Now President Trump is adding insult to injury by threatening to withhold guaranteed pay for furloughed employees, a move that is not only disgusting, but illegal,” Chen said.
EPA employees took note of the administration’s threats, including issuing a reduction in force, or RIF, during the shutdown. One agency staffer said they didn’t appreciate the president’s intent “to defy the law and deny us back pay or lay people off.”
“But I honestly think federal workers are so traumatized that the threats mostly just bounce off us at this point,” the EPA employee said.
Reporters Jean Chemnick, Hannah Northey, Sean Reilly and Miranda Willson contributed.
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