The Federal Emergency Management Agency placed three dozen employees on paid leave Tuesday after they signed on to a letter airing grievances over the agency’s moves under the Trump administration, according to the letter writers.
A number of those employees were “removed from active duty in the … Texas flood response efforts,” according to a news release from Stand Up for Science, an advocacy group that helped organize the letter this week.
The administrative moves came one day after 182 current and former FEMA employees fired off a letter to Congress and the federal FEMA review council warning that layoffs, bureaucratic changes and the withholding of billions of dollars in grants could imperil disaster response efforts. The release of the letter was timed with the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina this week.
Dubbed the “FEMA Katrina Declaration,” the missive represented the latest public rebuke of Trump administration actions by federal employees concerned about sweeping changes taking place at their agencies. EPA placed 160 employees on leave after the signing of a similar letter, and most of them had their leave extended for a third time earlier this month.
