President Donald Trump's administration has moved to cut thousands of employees from the Environmental Protection Agency in accordance with his promise to do so if a government shutdown ensued, Breitbart reported. The federal government has been shut down since Oct. 1 after Democrats failed to agree to a deal that would have kept the government open through the end of the year.
While the EPA does the vital work of keeping America's skies and waterways clean, it is also a bastion of leftist activism. Furthermore, it is also a bloated bureaucracy that consumes taxpayer dollars while returning relatively little in return.
Trump had recommended that the agency reduce its workforce of 16,421 full-time employees to approximately 12,500 by the end of this year. The agency also reduced or canceled grants and other spending by $29 billion, thanks to Trump.
Of course, any time the government is asked to reduce its spending, some make catastrophic predictions. The same applies to this, as some believe that permanently laying off employees who were furloughed during the shutdown is a risky move. However, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has assured the public that a contingency plan is in place.
Even with the government shutdown dragging on into its fourth week, Zeldin said that the agency will still be able to meet its core objectives even if the Democrats continue to play games. "The Trump EPA is committed to protecting the environment and ensuring America has the cleanest air, land and water in the world while growing our economy, but Democrats are content to allow our funding to run out," Zeldin said.
"They are preventing us from securing funding needed to continue these important programs and impeding our ability to deliver clean air, land, and water for Americans. They are prioritizing their own radical policy agenda that could undermine both environmental progress and economic stability in pursuit of their $1.5 trillion poison-packed wish list at the expense of the American people," he went on.
"Congressional Democrats can end this shutdown right now by voting for our clean, bipartisan funding extension instead of playing political games," Zeldin concluded. The agency has promised to continue with its operations, including "Protection of EPA land, buildings, equipment, and protection of research; Law enforcement and criminal investigations; Emergency and disaster assistance; Superfund response work; EPA’s emergency response readiness operations," the news outlet noted.
What won't be carried on are functions like "Issuing new grants or interagency agreements; Civil enforcement inspections; Approvals of pending state requests, such as authorized/delegated state-issued EPA permits, SIPs, TMDLs, Water Quality Standards." Nevertheless, the agency has continued to operate despite Democrats' unwillingness to vote to keep the lights on.
Some of the functions successfully carried out include remediation of several "superfund" sites that are tainted with hazardous waste, including Glycerin Traders in La Porte, Indiana, and Berry’s Creek in Bergen County, New Jersey. It has also continued to play an advisory role in wildfire prevention and cleanup.
It appears that the EPA is performing well, despite having to reduce some services due to the shutdown that Democrats continue to perpetuate. Still, many employees are worried about their jobs, especially since they may be on the chopping block due to Trump.
One employee is concerned about seeing reduction-in-force orders come through for those temporarily out of a job due to the shutdown. "I’m worried that I and other furloughed employees will be RIFed," an unidentified staffer said.
"I’d rather go hungry than lose our democracy. I refuse to stay quiet and let them use us feds as an excuse to accept a bad deal," another employee said, clearly showing the leftist bent that many share in government and the EPA, particularly.
Meanwhile, Trump's EPA spokesperson, Brigit Hirsch, said that they've "been intentional and aggressive in establishing a structure to ensure EPA is focused on statutory obligations & Presidential priorities, not the overreach of the previous administration," she told E&E News. "There is zero uncertainty at EPA about what we are working on and who is advancing these priorities," Hirsch added.
Regardless of how it gets done, it's always good news for taxpayers when the government workforce is cut in a significant way. The Democrats have decided to play this game of chicken with Trump, and it appears that once again, he has gotten the best of them.
