In the months since Trump was inaugurated, the administration has sought to undermine democratic values and the rule of law, dismantle the civil service, and gut environmental and public health protections.
Its efforts to consolidate power, suppress dissent, weaken civil society, and roll back vital protections threaten not only to destroy our environment but to replace our democracy with an authoritarian system.
PEER is meeting this crisis head on. While we are clear-eyed about the threats this anti-democratic effort poses to our country, we also know that most Americans support a non-partisan civil service, independent scientific research, and a healthy environment. That is why we have stepped up our efforts to protect public employees who expose this administration’s unlawful activities and to build a robust litigation and policy agenda to protect public health and the environment.
PEER is playing a critical and unique role in building public opposition to the administration’s efforts to dismantle federal agencies. We are doing this by protecting the integrity of the civil service, safeguarding important environmental protections, and laying the groundwork for a series of reforms to limit outsized executive authority and prevent future autocratic abuses like those we are seeing today.
While we cannot talk about all of our projects, here is a summary of some of our key efforts during the early months of this administration.
At the heart of all our work is protecting the civil service and standing up for public employees who face retaliation for protecting the environment and public health.
Protecting a Non-Partisan Civil Service
PEER is suing the Trump administration to protect tens of thousands of non-partisan, merit-based civil service positions from becoming political appointments. Implementation of Trump’s “Schedule F”, also referred to as “Schedule P/C” would allow a President to easily fire non-partisan career employees and replace them with party loyalists. We are fighting to ensure that federal jobs are filled based on merit, not loyalty to the president.
Safeguarding Free Speech
PEER is leading a case to protect a government employee threatened with criminal charges for lawful environmental advocacy that she engaged in outside of her work hours. PEER filed this lawsuit to protect some of our most enshrined rights as Americans – the right to petition our government, speak publicly on matters of public concern, and associate with like-minded citizens to advance shared goals.
Protecting Scientific Integrity
PEER is representing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) scientists who were retaliated against after protesting the watering down of risk assessments for chemicals, including carcinogens and developmental toxins. This work is critical to restoring trust in chemical safety reviews and protecting the public from dangerous substances.
Standing with Environmental Justice Staff
PEER is fighting for EPA employees left to languish on administrative leave after the Trump Administration shut down the agency’s environmental justice program. On behalf of these employees and all others similarly situated, we have filed a complaint against this ideological purge.
Fighting Unlawful NOAA Firings
PEER is working to defend employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the wake of widespread and illegal firings within the agency. PEER is working to publicize their stories and demonstrate the benefits their work brought to the environment and citizens alike. Our advocacy has to date resulted in major stories on NBC, MSNBC, The Hill, and NPR about the plight of these workers.
Ensuring every Public Servant has Proper Legal Representation
PEER is taking action to ensure federal employees find the proper legal representation they need when we are not the appropriate organization to provide that help. For example, we helped identify plaintiffs for the lawsuit, AFGE, AFL-CIO v. United States Office of Personnel Management, in which the unions and non-profit organizations are challenging the illegal firing of probationary employees in federal court.
Exposing and Challenging Unlawful Administration Actions
PEER is managing an extensive oversight program using transparency tools like the Freedom of Information Act to uncover political interference, conflicts of interest, and dereliction of duty at agencies entrusted to maintain environmental and public health. This discovered information helps PEER’s target our press and litigation strategy for maximum public effect. One of our key areas of focus at this time is the financial relationships between DOGE-affiliated employees and the decisions made by those agencies
Laying the Groundwork for a Better Future: Rebalancing Executive Checks and Balances
We are starting to look ahead to how we can help prevent future presidents from assuming the same authoritarian posture as President Trump. We believe that when a new administration takes over, Congress must act decisively to fundamentally rebalance our system of checks and balances.
PEER is working on a plan that recommends Congress reinstitute some of the checks and balances this administration has shredded, but in a way that insulates them from being undone by a future president acting alone. Congress must strengthen institutional guardrails against executive violations of ethical standards, protections of federal employees from illegal actions, and enforceable standards for scientific integrity.
PEER is well situated to help lead this effort against the recurrence of future lawless regimes. As one of the few nonprofit organizations with experience working before these oversight bodies and within the civil service on a regular basis, we have the institutional knowledge and insights to be effective advocates for these reforms.
Tim Whitehouse is the Executive Director at PEER.
