Thread: EPA lost more than 1,500 workers in first 18 months of Trump administration: report

EPA lost more than 1,500 workers in first 18 months of Trump administration: report

By John Bowden - 09/08/18 10:44 PM EDT

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has lost nearly 10 percent of its staff over the past year and a half of President Trump's administration due to large numbers of departing staffers and low hiring numbers.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that nearly 1,600 workers left the EPA over an 18 month period while just about 400 were hired over the same time frame, leading to about an 8 percent reduction in the agency's overall staff. The levels of EPA staff are now at their lowest point since the Reagan administration.

According to information retrieved by the Post, those staff reductions include as many as 260 scientists, 106 engineers, and 185 “environmental protection specialists," numbers which include both longtime veterans of the department and newer employees.

The departures have raised fears of a loss of experience at the agency, as both veterans and their replacements have departed due to unhappiness with new directions the EPA has taken under Trump's administration.

“I felt it was time to leave given the irresponsible, ongoing diminishment of agency resources, which has recklessly endangered our ability to execute our responsibilities as public servants,” one former EPA scientist, Ann Williamson, told the Post.

“I did not want to any longer be any part of this administration’s nonsense,” she added.

EPA chief Andrew Wheeler told the Post in a statement that his focus is on recruitment and finding quality staffers for the department, not total staffing levels, noting that many other employees have contracts expiring within the next five years.

“With nearly half of our employees eligible to retire in the next five years, my priority is recruiting and maintaining the right staff, the right people for our mission, rather than total full-time employees,” he said.

Trump's former EPA chief Scott Pruitt, who left the agency amid scandal, told The Hill in January he was proud of staff reductions at the agency which he called part of the president's plan to shrink government.

“We’re proud to report that we’re reducing the size of government, protecting taxpayer dollars and staying true to our core mission of protecting the environment,” Pruitt said.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-env...onths-of-trump

The swamp draining itself and leaving on their own


Now cut off all freebies to illegal aliens, no school, no healthcare, no medical, no anchor baby and make them leave on their own too!!!

Yes, exactly!! Self-Attrition. A beautiful thing.