EPA is refusing to disclose which of its employees could fall under a more easily fireable civil servant classification created by the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump will select positions across the government for the new category via executive order after an Office of Personnel Management rule creating it becomes effective next month.
EPA employees fear the new group, a key plank of Trump’s push to reshape the federal workforce, will chill pushback against political leadership since those career staffers will become at-will and no longer able to challenge firings and other adverse actions against them.
The agency will not release its recommendations despite the deadline drawing closer. EPA withheld its latest submission of the so-called Schedule Policy/Career positions in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from POLITICO’s E&E News.
