Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his DOGE team appear to have set their sights on another government agency. The New York Times recently reported that President Trump’s EPA administrator planned to cut up to 65 percent of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) staff, a move that employees later said would halt much of its operations.
At Wednesday’s cabinet meeting, Trump told the New York Times that EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said he “thinks he’s going to be cutting 65 or so percent of the people from environmental. And we’re going to speed up the process, too, at the same time.” EPA managers said they received a memo from the White House shortly after the meeting, warning of pending layoffs. An EPA official later clarified that Trump’s words meant a 65 percent cut in the overall budget, not a direct reduction in staff.
Cutting 65 percent of the EPA’s workforce would amount to more than 10,000 layoffs out of the agency’s more than 15,000 full-time workers. Experts also say the move would cripple the EPA’s regulatory activities and could shut down its environmental-hazard response efforts, with one telling the NYT that “it means 65% less people available to respond to natural disasters, which are happening more frequently, not less. It would mean 65% less people to respond to hazardous cleanups, to do air monitoring and lead abatement.”
[Images: II Studio, Benjamin Clapp, Tada Images via Shutterstock]
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