EPA Staffers Demand Change in ‘Declaration of Dissent’

“Today, we stand together in dissent against the current administration's focus on harmful deregulation, mischaracterization of previous EPA actions, and disregard for scientific expertise.”

Hundreds of workers from the Environmental Protection Agency have issued a declaration to Administrator Lee Zeldin and members of Congress, criticizing his leadership and the agency's new direction under his, and President Trump's watch.

Sent Monday morning, the Declaration of Dissent says the Trump administration’s policies “undermine EPA's mission and threaten the health of people and the planet.”

“Today, we stand together in dissent against the current administration's focus on harmful deregulation, mischaracterization of previous EPA actions, and disregard for scientific expertise,” the document reads. “Since January 2025, federal workers across the country have been denigrated and dismissed based on false claims of waste, fraud, and abuse. Meanwhile, Americans have witnessed the unraveling of public health and environmental protections in the pursuit of political advantage.”

“Today, we come directly to you, Administrator Zeldin and our elected officials, with the five concerns outlined below,” it adds. “We expect your deliberate consideration of these concerns and look forward to working with you to restore EPA's credibility as a premier scientific institution.”

The declaration, signed by 278 EPA workers—174 of whose used their names with the rest joining anonymously out of fear of retaliation—comes as Republican lawmakers and the Trump administration are poised to deliver a devastating blow to clean energy, quickly phasing out green tax credits from President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and imposin new taxes on wind and solar projects.

The document echoes a similar effort by workers at the National Institutes of Health. The Bethesda Declaration was published earlier this month and has been signed by over 500 current and former NIH workers. Last week, it was endorsed by the NIH Fellows United-UAW 2750 union. The EPA workers even framed their new declaration as an act of “solidarity with employees across the federal government in opposing this administration's policies.” Similar to the EPA workers, NIH workers blasted their agency’s leadership for prioritizing “political momentum over human safety and faithful stewardship of public resources.”

The similarity is no coincidence. Both efforts had organizational help from the new nonprofit Stand Up for Science, founded in February to fight DOGE's federal research cuts. Declaration signatures have been verified with help from EPA worker unions. Important Context has not independently verified every signature.

“Once again we have career civil servants, who have taken an oath to uphold their agency’s mission, speaking out—with nothing to gain, and their careers to lose—after being asked to do things that will harm the public and violate their moral center,” said Collette Delawalla from Stand Up for Science. “These EPA employees are normal Americans, our neighbors and friends. This type of action is unprecedented for the EPA.”

The EPA workers’ declaration recalls a promise Zeldin made at his Senate confirmation hearing, “to lead the EPA in its ‘simple but essential’ mission.” It notes Zeldin had expressed gratitude for the opportunity to “do everything in our power to harness the greatness of American innovation, with greatness of American conservation and environmental stewardship” and charges that he's done the opposite.

Michael Pasqua, a Wisconsin state program manager with the EPA who signed the dissent declaration, told Important Context that while he feared retaliation, he signed the document out of a sense of duty and patriotism.

“Virtually nothing since January has been to ‘protect human health and the environment,’” Pasqua said. “Their decisions and actions to defund critical programs for our most vulnerable communities…will harm people now and in the future—let alone the environmental impacts. They do this under the guise of saving taxpayer dollars, but it's at the cost of American life that I will not stand by and allow this because I also took an oath to the Constitution and to the mission of the Agency.”

Nicole Cantello, an attorney-advisor with the EPA and union representative, expressed similar sentiments.

“Without EPA, our children will be drinking dirty water and breathing toxic air,” she said. “If we don’t quickly reverse the effects of climate change, the planet will become uninhabitable for many of us. The stakes couldn’t be higher. Those of us at EPA who do this work must speak out now, before the Agency abandons its mission entirely.”

Cantello was sanguine about the prospect of retaliation, telling Important Context, “I can’t really control the actions that others take in response to mine.”

“I worry instead that I do justice to what is at stake here,” she said.

The Declaration of Dissent lays out five main ways the Trump administration and Zeldin are “recklessly undermining” the EPA’s mission. It alleges that Zeldin is “undermining public trust,” politicizing what has historically been a non-partisan agency.

“Under this administration, the Agency's communication platforms have been used to promote misinformation and overtly partisan rhetoric.” it reads. “For example, EPA press releases and the ‘Call it a Comeback’ newsletter have referred to EPA grants as ‘green slush funds’ and praised ‘clean coal’ as ‘beautiful.’“

“The Office of the Administrator has used official EPA channels to liken climate science to a ‘religion’ and issued attacks against individual members of Congress,” it reads.

The declaration calls Zeldin's official communications partisan, scientifically unsound and counterproductive to the Agency's mission. It also accuses Zeldin’s office of possibly violating the Hatch Act “by using EPA’s official website and social media to criticize former President Biden and promote political initiatives such as President Trump’s tariffs and the so-called ‘Big Beautiful Bill.’”

The singers also accuse Zeldin of “ignoring scientific consensus to benefit polluters.”

Throughout his political career, Zeldin—a former Congressman from Long Island, New York—has received millions from PACs and private donors tied to the fossil fuel industry. His tenure as EPA administrator has been marked by a staggering rollback of environmental protections. In mid-March, he proudly announced the “biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history,” undoing 31 climate and environment rules from the previous administration. Zeldin has also expressed support for reconsidering the 2009 finding that greenhouse gases are behind global warming and its disastrous consequences—the main basis for all U.S. climate action.

Zeldin's EPA has also sought to unravel new rules surrounding microplastics and “forever chemicals,” aiming to axe the first-ever legally enforceable limit on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances in drinking water. Approved in 2024 by the Biden administration, it held the industry financially responsible for cleaning up contaminated public water systems.

The move was unsurprising and echoes suggestions in the Heritage Foundation’s notorious Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership plan Trump has been following closely, which calls to “revisit the designation of PFAS chemicals as ‘hazardous substances’ under [the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980].” On day one of his new administration, President Trump issued an executive order killing a proposal to limit the discharge of PFAs into water sources.

Zeldin’s EPA also recently announced plans to revisit the Biden administration’s ban on asbestos, a known carcinogen.

“This administration's actions directly contradict EPA's own scientific assessments on human health risks, most notably regarding asbestos, mercury, and greenhouse gases,” the declaration reads. “Health-based regulatory standards are being repealed or reconsidered, including drinking water limits for four PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ that cause cancer.”

The declaration continues on, criticizing Zeldin for “stripping away support for cleaner electric vehicles” and pushing to adopt so-called “artificial intelligence” technology while limiting telework for employees. In a post on X last November, Zeldin vowed to “make the US the global leader of AI.” But according to the declaration, he’s neglected the climate costs of doing so.

“You are supporting new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), without addressing AI's intense consumption of environmental resources,” it reads. “The decisions of the current administration frequently contradict the peer-reviewed research and recommendations of Agency experts. Such contradiction undermines EPA's reputation as a trusted scientific authority.”

EPA staff also take aim at Zeldin for dismantling the agency’s environmental justice program, noting that minority and marginalized communities are most likely to suffer the worst fallout from cuts.

In spite of a court order barring the Trump administration from freezing "equity-based" grants and contracts, Zeldin cancelled over 400 environmental justice-related grants, worth US 1.7 billion. He also overhauled Biden-Harris Administration’s “Social Cost of Carbon,” the estimation of economic damage caused by each additional ton of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere.

Another major area of contention in the document is the dismantling of the EPA’s independent Office of Research and Development (ORD), which currently leads “a separately identified program of continuing, long-term environmental research and development.” While the office’s independence is required by law, the declaration notes that Zeldin has proposed a reorganization that would ultimately fold ORD in with the agency’s rule-making and enforcement arms. The declaration warns that such a plan would open the office up to political influence and pressure while also inhibiting its ability to function.

“The gutting of staff and science and your proposed budget cuts for the coming year will leave ORD unable to meet the science needs of the EPA and its partners and will threaten the health of all Americans,” the document reads.

The final grievance in the EPA workers’ Declaration of Dissent is the “culture of fear” inside the EPA it alleges Zeldin has helped foster and create. The Declaration notes that Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought expressed his desire to put EPA employees “in trauma” to the point where they “do not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as villains.”

“We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can’t do all of the rules against our energy industry…we want to put them in trauma,” Vought said.

The declaration hits back at Zeldin over his apparent efforts to undermine the agency’s employees and ensure they have no recourse against the administration’s actions against them.

“Administrator Zeldin, you have done your best to ensure that employees have no recourse to these assaults by nullifying bargaining agreements and refusing to negotiate,” it reads.

Working “against the unions instead of negotiating with them,” was but one of the tools the administration has used to torment workers.

In February, over 1,000 employees received a letter telling them they could be fired at any time, and hundreds of environmental justice staffers were put on administrative leave. They were reinstated in March and, mere days later, Zeldin ordered the immediate closure of environmental justice offices and the elimination of related staff positions. Some 280 workers were terminated and another 175 were reassigned to new roles. The declaration notes these efforts to slash the agency workforce.

“These actions directly undermine EPA's capacity to fulfill its mission,” it reads.

The declaration concludes by noting that Zeldin’s “decisions and actions will reverberate for generations to come,” adding that, under his leadership, the EPA “will not protect communities from hazardous chemicals and unsafe drinking water, but instead will increase risks to public health and safety.”

Still, the signers believe there’s time to course-correct. They urge the EPA chief to honor his oath and serve the American people. Should he choose to do so, they pledge to “support [his] efforts in protecting human health and the environment for all people.”

“Administrator Zeldin, we share your stated goal of wanting every child in this nation, including your own, to ‘inherit a world with clean air, clean water, and a thriving economy,’” the declaration reads. “We are civil servants who are dedicated to responsibly managing public resources to drive innovative, high-impact research to create and implement the country's environmental regulations and solve environmental challenges. We want to work together, not to power the ‘Great American Comeback,’ but to launch America into a safer, healthier, and thriving future.”