Overview:

- Federal workers at Ann Arbor's EPA office fear being targeted by President Trump's environmental rollbacks and government downsizing.
- The White House's directives could lead to direct firings or create intolerable conditions, according to AFGE Local 3907, which includes workers from EPA's National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory in Ann Arbor.
- These policies could hinder the office's work and politicize management, favoring industry over health and climate protection.

Workers at Ann Arbor’s Environmental Protection Agency office are expressing concern that they will be targeted by President Donald Trump’s efforts to roll back environmental protections and shrink the size of government.

The White House issued directives last week to compel federal workers who had been working remotely to return to the office and to reinstate the controversial “Schedule Policy/Career” designation, previously called “schedule F,” that could make it easier to fire employees for political reasons.

The administration’s policies could force workers out directly through firings or by creating a situation that is so difficult that employees choose to leave, officials with the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3907, which includes workers from EPA’s National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory in Ann Arbor, told Planet Detroit. 

This could impair the office’s work and politicize management, leading to regulations and enforcement that are more favorable to industry and less protective of health and the climate.

“We’re not political. We take orders from Republicans and Democratic administrations,” said Mark Coryell, secretary of AFGE Local 3907. “The one thing we don’t like is our work being perverted.”

The laboratory provides technical support for the development of new air quality regulations and performs testing to ensure vehicle manufacturers comply with existing rules. 

Trump has previously threatened the lab’s work. Proposed cuts to the EPA’s budget during Trump’s first term could have resulted in its closure. and the administration issued an executive order on Inauguration Day targeting waivers that allow states to adopt stronger than federal tailpipe-emissions policies.

Vehicle emissions rules help control pollutants like ozone, fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) and nitrogen oxides, which can be especially harmful for those living in large cities, near major roadways or close to ports, said Walter Mugdan, a former deputy regional administrator with the EPA and volunteer with Environmental Protection Network, a group of former EPA workers.  

“When you control the traditional pollutants, what you’re doing is you’re improving people’s health directly, measurably and consequentially,” Mugdan said.

Since 2008, vehicle emission reductions have delivered $270 billion social benefits, mostly due decreased mortality risk, according to a 2021 Harvard University study.

Unions are pushing back on the administration’s efforts to target federal employees, with AFGE and the nonprofit State Democracy Defenders Fund filing a lawsuit arguing the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency, a commission charged with reducing government spending, violates a statute governing the creation of federal advisory panels.

The National Treasury Employees Union filed a separate lawsuit over the Schedule Policy/Career order, alleging that it would remove employees’ due process rights and violate Office of Personnel and Management regulations.

The White House did not respond to Planet Detroit’s request for comment.

‘Dangerous insertion of politics’ into EPA research and enforcement

The Trump administration’s executive order to revive the Schedule Career/Policy designation is especially concerning to some former and current EPA workers, who fear it will be used to fire qualified workers and politicize research and enforcement activities.

“This is a dangerous insertion of politics where…it shouldn’t belong and it doesn’t need to belong,” Mugdan said.

The head of the EPA, regional directors and other policy workers are political appointees, giving the administration substantial influence over policy decisions. Implementing the Schedule Policy/Career category would target many career civil servants in management positions who don’t make policy decisions, Mugdan said.

At Ann Arbor’s vehicle emissions lab, he said the fear of being fired or forced to relocate to a different office could create a chilling effect that pressures managers to make decisions on regulations and enforcement that align with the Trump administration’s agenda. 

“If you are suddenly thinking, ‘Hmm, they would be happier if I characterize this as being either technologically unfeasible or the economic benefits are much, much greater’…the policy people have a better reason not to select that,” he said.

After filing its lawsuit, the NTEU said in a statement that the American people deserve to have government professionals committed to public service, who can keep working regardless of which political party controls the White House.

“Yesterday’s Executive Order is a dangerous step backward to a political spoils system that Congress expressly rejected 142 years ago, which is why we are suing to have the order declared unlawful,” the statement reads.

In addition to management, employees in the job for less than a year may also be vulnerable because they are on probationary status and lack the civil service protections that protect many other federal workers.

On the day of Trump’s inauguration, the acting head of the Office of Personnel and Management, ordered agencies to compile lists of recent hires and “promptly determine whether those employees should be retained at the agency.”

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Trump ‘buyout’ offer seizes on telework concerns

The Trump administration’s memorandum that federal employees return to in-person work could also drive EPA employees to resign and compromise the agency’s work, said Tad Wysor, volunteer vice president of AFGE Local 3907. However, the AFGE’s current contract could offer protection to union members.

Wysor said that telework has been a boon for the EPA’s efficiency. He noted that the agency was able to introduce important emission regulations after Covid compelled many employees to work remotely, including final rules for light-duty and medium duty vehicles and heavy duty vehicles.

Coryell, with AFGE Local 3907,  said the existing contract contains a “reopener” that could allow management to bring up telework in 2026, although he said the President could also put in an order breaking the contract.

“Then we’d spend the next year and a half to two years litigating it,” he said. “That’s a year and a half or two years of trauma for folks that need telework.”

Coryell said the difficulties imposed by such a situation would inevitably force some workers to quit.

In a statement, AFGE said the presidential directive terminating remote work didn’t appear to reject collective bargaining agreements.  Whether the union filed a lawsuit would depend on how it was implemented, the statement said.

Complicating the issue is an email the Trump administration sent to federal employees, offering pay through the end of September for workers that resign by Feb. 6. The memo added that employees who took the offer would not have to return to in-person work.

Jim Eisenmann, a partner with Alden Law Group who represents federal employees, told NPR that this offer was “not a buyout” and “not based on any law or regulation or anything really other than an idea they cooked up to get federal employees out of the government.”

“The resignation offer is a chaotic, costly and vindictive attempt to scare employees into quitting,” Michelle Roos, executive director of EPN, said in a statement. She said the move was intended to drive out workers with “threats of unspecified firings or job cuts, especially at EPA” to compromise the agency and shut down pollution enforcement.

Wysor said he feared the various directives from the White House would slow down the EPA’s work without even changing any laws.

“I worked for eight presidents, and we always were able to continue to do what the intent of Congress was…to actually protect the environment,” he said.

“This is a new phase that seems to be much more serious and much more dangerous than anything in the past.”

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Brian Allnutt is a senior reporter and contributing editor at Planet Detroit. He covers the climate crisis, environmental justice, politics and open space.