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EPA to fire or reassign more than 450 staffers working on environmental justice, DEI
04/22/25
The Environmental Protection Agency has informed more than 450 employees working on environmental justice and diversity, equity and inclusion that they will be fired or reassigned, according to an agency spokesman, as part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to reshape the agency
EPA Assistant Deputy Administrator Travis Voyles sent notices late Monday to staffers at agency headquarters who work in the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, which the administration plans to close, as well as those who work on environmental justice in regional offices. The “reduction in force” would cut 280 employees and reassign about 175 employees to other offices, according to the spokesman
“This action is necessary to align our workforce with the Agency’s current and future needs and to ensure the efficient and effective operation of our programs,” said the notice, which was obtained by The Washington Post. “With this action, EPA is delivering organizational improvements to the personnel structure that will directly benefit the American people and better advance the Agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment.”
The news comes months after the agency placed 171 of the office’s employees on administrative leave and then reversed course, reinstating dozens of regional employees in offices across the country.
“EPA is taking the next step to terminate the Biden-Harris Administration’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Environmental Justice arms of the agency,” the agency said in a statement. “This is the first step in a broader effort to ensure that EPA is best positioned to meet its core mission of protecting human health and the environment and Powering the Great American Comeback.”
Some environmental advocates worry that dismantling the office will hurt disadvantaged communities, which continue to bear the brunt of pollution.
“Every person in this country, regardless of socioeconomic status, race, or Zip code, deserves clean water, air and food,” Kyla Bennett, director of science policy at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said in an email. “These RIFs will ensure that overburdened communities will continue to suffer needlessly.”
The EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice was created in 1992 under President George H.W. Bush as the Office of Environmental Equity. In 1994, its name was changed to the Office of Environmental Justice after President Bill Clinton issued an executive order recognizing that pollution affects poor and minority communities more than wealthier and White ones. In 2022, President Joe Biden merged three existing programs to create the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights.
The EPA has taken offline the webpage dedicated to a timeline of the agency’s environmental justice work, and environmental justice is no longer listed on the EPA’s main topics page.
Environmental justice and DEI staffers who are being fired will lose their jobs on July 31. Statutory workers, with duties that are required by law, will be reassigned to other offices on June 29.
