Trump administration layoffs may threaten public safety
Nature is one of the preeminent cross-science publications in the world. Nature Briefing, its newsletter, notes today that at the Environmental Protection Agency “More than 1,000 employees tasked with regulating air pollution, researching the health effects of toxic chemicals and more have been notified that they might be fired. ” (This is apart from another 171 staff members who worked in DEI and environmental justice.)
Don’t forget the well-publicized firing of 300 National Nuclear Safety Administration nuclear weapons staff, which the Trump administration has had grave difficulties in “walking back” because the employees e-mail addresses were terminated upon firing. We can contemplate how happy some foreign countries might be to hire these people, most of whom had high-level security clearances.
Those of us living around Rocky Flats depend on continued oversight by the DOE’s Office of Legacy Management. Although firings at the DOE so far have mostly restricted to probationary employees and I’m not sure how many of these are in Legacy Management, we should worry.