FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, February 4, 2026
Contact:
Colleen Zimmerman (202) 464-2293 [email protected]
Kyla Bennett (508) 230-9933 [email protected]
PEER Sues EPA After Agency Fails to Produce Evidence to Back up Zeldin’s Defamatory Remarks Against EPA Staff
Claims of Widespread Absenteeism and Ghost Employees Unsupported
Washington, DC — Today, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after the agency failed to produce evidence to back up Administrator Lee Zeldin’s claim of widespread absenteeism and ghost employees in the agency when he first came to EPA.
At a February 26, 2025 Cabinet meeting, President Trump said in the presence of Mr. Zeldin: “I spoke with Lee Zeldin, and 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. He had a lot of people that weren’t doing their job – they were just obstructionists — and a lot of people that didn’t exist, I guess, Lee, too. You found a lot of empty spots that the people weren’t there. They didn’t exist.”
Shortly thereafter, PEER submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking any evidence Mr. Zeldin had about absentee or ghost employees at EPA. Mr. Zeldin’s office initially refused to process PEER’s FOIA request. PEER successfully appealed that refusal to EPA’s Office of General Counsel (OGC), which instructed EPA to contact PEER within 10 days to discuss a timeline to respond regarding the FOIA. EPA took over three months to comply with OGC’s instructions and has failed to abide by its own production schedule. PEER is suing EPA for its failure to comply with FOIA.
“This lawsuit seeks to hold Administrator Zeldin accountable for the misinformation he has been spreading about EPA employees,” said PEER Science Policy Director Kyla Bennett. “These attacks on EPA employees are part of a larger effort by Zeldin to demoralize his staff and redirect the agency’s resources to serve a narrow set of polluting industries.”
“EPA is not responding because the documents supporting Mr. Zeldin’s negative assertions about EPA staff most likely do not exist,” commented PEER Staff Counsel Colleen Zimmerman, who filed the FOIA suit today in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia. “If Mr. Zeldin is forced to finally admit in federal court that he unjustly defamed his own staff for political purposes, he should do the honorable thing by apologizing and resigning.”
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Revisit Zeldin claims of widespread absenteeism and ghost employees
PEER protects public employees who protect our environment. We are a service organization for environmental and public health professionals, land managers, scientists, enforcement officers and other civil servants dedicated to upholding environmental laws and values. We work with current and former federal, state, local and tribal employees.
