Tim Whitehouse, executive director of the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a nonprofit organization that supports environmental workers and has been tracking these administrative problems, said the errors suggest leadership problems within the agency.
“They’re causing emotional and financial costs on these employees. The Department of Commerce is the worst — quote me on that,” he said. “Other agencies have fixed these problems. They have not come up in other agencies. This is a Department of Commerce problem and a leadership issue.”