EPA begins eliminating offices as DOGE tightens grip on nearly all agency spending

Updated March 12 at 3:57 p.m.

The Environmental Protection Agency has formally eliminated all offices related to diversity and environmental justice, likely leading to the layoffs of nearly 200 employees across the country. 

Those workers have mostly been on paid administrative leave since the outset of the Trump administration—though some were called back to work in recent days—and Administrator Lee Zeldin announced on Tuesday evening he would terminate their offices. The closures will impact employees at all 10 of EPA regions, Zeldin said in a memorandum to agency leadership that was obtained by Government Executive, as well as its headquarters. 

EPA will shutter the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, the Environmental Justice Division within all EPA regional offices and the Office of Inclusive Excellence within the Office of Mission Support. Zeldin said those actions would bring EPA into compliance with President Trump’s executive order to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion—and environmental justice—efforts across government. That order tasked agencies with initiating RIFs for employees working in those positions. EPA previously said it was placing 171 employees in those offices on administrative leave. 

“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,” Zeldin said in his Tuesday memo. 

President Clinton in 1994 signed an executive order tasking federal agencies to work with minority and low-income communities to protect them from disproportionate environmental impacts, leading to the creation of EPA’s office. It has worked with communities to develop solutions to environmental problems and provided an avenue for conflict resolution. 

The Environmental Protection Network, a group of former EPA employees, said the environmental justice office elimination was troubling as it helped prevent discrimination, hold polluters accountable and aid communities disproportionately impacted by climate change. 

“By shutting down environmental justice, Trump’s EPA is turning its back on protecting clean air and safe drinking water for every American, regardless of where they live or who they voted for,” said Michelle Roos, EPN's executive director. “Trump is taking a chainsaw to EPA as a favor for corporate polluters that leaves everyone else wondering what toxic pollution will be in the water that we drink and the air that we breathe.”

The office closures are just a small first step in what is expected to be much more significant layoffs across the agency. President Trump recently said in a cabinet meeting that EPA would slash 65% of its workforce, though the White House later told Politico Trump meant to say EPA would slash 65% of its "wasteful spending." 

Meanwhile, EPA is giving more authority to the Elon Musk-backed Department of Government Efficiency. The agency notified staff this week that DOGE must now sign off on any agency expenditure of more than $50,000, according to emails obtained by Government Executive, as well as actions with no associated costs that could later create them.  

All agency actions—including procurements, grants, contracts, interagency agreements and others—must go through a review process through the political appointee in the relevant EPA office. If that appointee approves an action of less than $50,000, it may then proceed. If it is approved but is more than $50,000, it would then go to DOGE for final sign off. 

The Trump administration has essentially frozen the use of government credit cards across federal agencies. 

“Information on new purchase card processes will be coming later this week, but for all intents and purposes there are no new purchase card transactions going forward,” one email to employees in the Office of Air and Radiation read.