The Interior Department is reassessing all remote and telework accommodations issued to employees with disabilities and centralizing the process between its agencies, which has raised concerns from a federal union that the government is casting a hostile eye toward these requests.
A June 29 memorandum directs all new requests for reasonable accommodations — workplace adjustments provided to people with disabilities — to be sent to a department email account, following a broader federal requirement for the review process to be centralized within departments. And the memo said that Interior is “reassessing previously granted accommodations to ensure they remain effective, necessary and compliant with law.”
The Trump administration is broadly opposed to remote work and telework, which involves intermittent attendance at a government office. On his first day in office, President Donald Trump ordered a full-time return-to-office policy, after working from home options had expanded across the federal government following the Covid-19 pandemic. But federal law requires reasonable accommodations to be issued for people with disabilities, which has led to some exceptions. Trump’s directive also said agencies could “make exemptions they deem necessary.”
An Interior spokesperson did not respond to questions about the new policy.
