EPA Employees Challenge Firings for Signing Dissent Letter

Today, six former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees filed First Amendment legal challenges to their recent firings for signing a letter of dissent. The six employees were among approximately 160 EPA employees who publicly signed a June 30^th open letter to Administrator Lee Zeldin and members of Congress protesting the politization of science at EPA and warning that EPA’s actions under this administration were endangering public health and the environment.

The EPA employees filed their claims before the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), a federal agency that resolves appeals from terminated federal government employees. Counsel for the fired employees includes Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), James & Hoffman, P.C., Minahan Muther Klinger, P.C., and Brown Gaines, LLC.

The former employees argue, among other things, their removals were illegal because –

• They were fired for exercising their First Amendment right to free speech;
• Their firings were illegal retaliation for perceived political affiliation;
• Their firings were an arbitrarily harsh and inconsistent punishment for their actions in relationship to other signatories of the letter; and,
• They were fired without cause.

EPA only fired a small number of employees, most of whom had long careers of distinguished government service. Many other workers who publicly signed the letter were suspended without pay for two weeks.

“Federal employees have the right to speak out on matters of public concern in their personal capacities, even when they do so in dissent,” says Joanna Citron Day, General Counsel for PEER. “EPA is not only undermining the First Amendment’s free speech protections by trying to silence its own workforce, it is also placing U.S. citizens in peril by removing experienced employees who are tasked with carrying out EPA’s critical mission.”

“Federal law protects these civil servants from arbitrary terminations,” said Daniel Rosenthal, a partner at James & Hoffman, a law firm that represents labor unions and employees. “The agency has the burden to prove that the employees engaged in misconduct and that this misconduct was severe enough to interfere with the employee’s work or another legitimate government objective. We look forward to refuting the EPA’s justification for terminating these dedicated employees.”

“If America is to remain on the course of democracy and honor the principles of its Constitution, we must allow its judicial system to restore employment for those unjustly fired and our collective faith in our country,” said Eden Brown Gaines, partner at Brown Gaines, LLC, a law firm that specializes in labor and employment matters.

“Unfortunately, the current Administration continues to attack federal employees without justification,” said Joshua Klinger, a partner at Minahan Muther Klinger, PC, a law firm representing federal employees and labor unions. “The overreach by the EPA regarding terminating a small group of employees who signed a dissent letter is in direct violation of the protections established under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.”

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See a termination notice

Look at the offending letter of dissent

Scan short bios of some of the removed EPA employees