Meanwhile, for parks supervisors, the uncertainty continues. Two who asked for anonymity because they fear retaliation said they had received permission to start rehiring seasonal employees. They said they are trying to act fast, because nobody knows when the guidance from the ...

President Donald Trump’s hiring freeze which was enacted as soon as he entered office could not have come at a worse time for the National Park Service. The agency relies heavily on seasonal workers and was in the beginning stages of staffing up for what looks to be another busy season. ...

But Tim Whitehouse, executive director of the nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said a shrinking work force, at least at the National Park Service, is “not going to save the government any money.” “It’s going to degrade our parks, demoralize people that ...

Dr. Kyla Bennett with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, one of the scientists involved in the investigation, explained how PFAS spread through air, water and soil adding that they can be inhaled, ingested or absorbed through the skin. Once PFAS chemical get into soil or ...

The Trump administration began laying off thousands of federal workers Thursday in what tribal and national leaders said will have a “dramatic” impact in health, education, law enforcement, social services and other tribal programs. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a ...

The Trump administration initiated a large-scale reduction of the federal workforce on Thursday, ordering agencies to dismiss probationary employees who have yet to attain civil service protections. Federal safety agencies are also affected. Public Employees for Environmental ...

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility also has no idea how many vacancies there are. “We are still in [a lawsuit] with NPS about its 2003 staffing, rescues, and assaults. Have just filed similar requests covering 2024,” said Jeff Ruch, the organization’s Pacific director ...

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a group that defends government workers, said the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service would be hit especially hard by laying off probationary employees because it has trouble recruiting inspectors required to be ...

EPA has been pressed to reveal what access Musk’s team has at the agency. In a letter last week to Administrator Lee Zeldin, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a watchdog group, called on him to publicly disclose what agency databases are open to DOGE. EPA holds sensitive ...

The question of cause is already proving contentious in the Parkinson’s disease lawsuits; judges have ruled that they won’t allow testimony from an expert on whether paraquat is capable of causing Parkinson’s disease in the lead up to the first trial, scheduled to start in October. ...

Kyla Bennett, an ecologist who directs science policy for the nonprofit group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (Peer) and served as a consultant for the investigation, had previously been involved in a couple of cases involving biosolids and quickly connected the dots. ‘ ...

With labs that measure global temperatures, melting Arctic ice, and levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, NOAA provides indisputable evidence that the climate crisis is real, which flies in the face of Trump’s pro-fossil fuel agenda. Timothy Whitehouse, director of Public Employees ...

The 2,850-acre Santa Susana Field Lab site near Simi Valley was previously used for rocket testing by Rocketdyne and was the site of a 1959 partial nuclear meltdown. Boeing, NASA and the Department of Energy are responsible for its cleanup, with Boeing overseeing 80% of the site. Los ...

The administration is planning to remove civil service protections from certain federal workers, which would allow some positions now held by highly skilled personnel to be reclassified so they could be filled based on loyalty to the administration rather than expertise. The move could ...

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), which supports public employees whose work involves the environment, natural resources, and public health, are trying to help workers one at a time. “We’re getting inundated with calls from public employees about how to address ...

Employees on administrative leave are still on salary and get benefits. Federal agencies are only allowed to place employees on administrative leave for 10 days in a calendar year, according to Peter Jenkins, senior counsel at Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. It is ...

“I think we’re going to see a breakdown across the whole system, where the federal agencies will be referring very few cases to the Department of Justice, and then there’ll be issues at the Department of Justice with carrying out the enforcement of these actions that the agencies ...

The consequences for the attacks on the EPA and other agencies are “all connected”, said the former EPA official Kyla Bennett, now with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility non-profit. “By cutting the Clean Water Act and wetland protection, flooding is going to be ...

“This email is another ill-motivated effort to get as many federal employees to quit as soon as possible,” said Peter Jenkins, senior counsel for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). “OPM has no legal authority to reliably claim that the Trump administration will ...

The plaintiffs in the case never applied biosolids on their own properties, said Laura Dumais, a staff attorney with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility who is representing them. Instead, their land was contaminated by runoff from neighbors. “Shortly after this material was ...