“An employee advocacy group is accusing the Biden administration of failing to follow through on its promise to reverse a Trump-era initiative aimed at making it easier to fire federal workers, instead using the nullified policy to dismiss a whistleblower.
Walter Loewen, a planning and environmental coordinator at the Bureau of Land Management, is facing a proposed removal after the agency said he performed inadequately. The dismissal, which is pending a final signoff from BLM management, follows Loewen raising concerns about a large and controversial oil and gas project on 1.5 million acres of federal land in Wyoming. Loewen and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the group representing him, said that timing is not a coincidence. Then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt gave the project final approval just weeks before President Biden took office.”
