Resistance from EPA career employees helped inspire a new rule from the Trump administration that could strip civil service protections from thousands in government.
The Office of Personnel Management finalized a regulation, published in the Federal Register on Friday, that stands up a new federal employee class that can be more easily fired. The measure, a version of which was floated during President Donald Trump’s first term, is designed to swiftly remove policymaking civil servants for misconduct, poor performance or those who undermine the president’s directives.
The finalized rule cites opposition from career employees at EPA to current and past Republican presidents as to why it’s necessary. Now back in the White House, Trump again has gone on a deregulatory tear aimed at the agency’s environmental protections, frustrating many staff who have left in droves.
Under the section titled “Bureaucratic Resistance Is Evident,” OPM pushes back against commenters questioning the rule, noting a Washington Post story after the 2024 election where an EPA career employee said they and their co-workers wanted to “make sure the new administration does not walk back environmental regulations” completed under former President Joe Biden.
The regulation also says there are “widespread reports” of federal employees pushing back against policymaking by the White House.
“Researchers documented that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) career staff moved policy in the opposite direction from the Reagan Administration’s goals,” the rule said, adding the researchers concluded “the influence of elected institutions is limited when an agency has substantial bureaucratic resources and a zeal for their use.”
Ex-President Ronald Reagan’s first EPA administrator, Anne Gorsuch Burford, was a polarizing figure that riled the agency’s career staff. She resigned less than two years into the job and was cited for contempt of Congress when she declined to share toxic waste documents.
OPM’s final rule authorizes agencies to move “policy-influencing positions” into a new category coined Schedule Policy/Career, originally known as Schedule F in Trump’s first term. Employees in that classification will remain in nonpartisan, career government jobs but will now be at-will positions exempted from the appeals process for adverse actions.
Critics warn the Trump administration’s new category of civil servant will politicize the federal workforce. Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, said the rule would not advance merit-based hiring but push out career experts who have served across administrations.
“There is a reason our nation abandoned the spoils system that handed out government jobs to political lackeys nearly 150 years ago,” Stier said in a statement. “That system inevitably led to corruption, incompetence, waste and ineffective government. This one will be no different.”
The administration also said the rule is required to force out poor performers in government. To make that claim, OPM picked apart a public comment filed by the Environmental Protection Network, a group of former EPA officials created to defend the agency’s mission, on the proposed rule.
“In the experience of the former EPA officials who volunteer for Commenter’s organization, performance-based actions are not easily proven or quickly effectuated, and are not infrequently challenged successfully,” the regulation said, adding “even many Federal officials who oppose this rule recognize that performance-based actions are difficult to undertake.”
EPN condemned the rule, calling it “fatally flawed” in its public comment. Contacted for this story, the group provided a statement from Mark Hague, its board chair who served 35 years at EPA, including as Region 7 administrator.
“This would undermine the ability of EPA to protect our health and the environment and hold violators of environmental laws accountable,” Hague said. “In a fire-at-will environment in which management positions are filled by political allies of the administration, the prospects for such abuses would become acute.”
The rule will be effective March 9. OPM estimates 50,000 federal employees across the government could be transferred into the new category.
EPA staffers have long feared the new classification, believing it could silence internal criticism and result in politicized firings. One anonymous commenter, saying they served at EPA for 32 years, opposed the rule.
“We need a workforce who is free to do right by using science/real data to shape policy to protect people’s health and the environment,” they said. “To give any administration the ability to fire civil servants without due process is a disgrace.”
Contact this reporter on Signal at KevinBogardus.89.
