Tim Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which is providing advice and legal counsel to an undisclosed number of NOAA employees, said he believes Friday’s email rescinding the Schedule F notifications “reflects a significant power struggle between NOAA and the Commerce Department” over who makes the final decisions on employee classifications.
“There’s just no sense or logic to how these department secretaries and DOGE are trying to downsize the government. It’s complete chaos,” he said. “And many of them don’t care because their goal is to traumatize federal workers and get them to quit.”