Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees say that recent workplace issues, from broken elevators to indoor temperatures exceeding 80 degrees, might be a ploy to get them to resign.
The uncomfortable work conditions at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., have been persisting for three weeks, EPA employees told CBS News.
Several employees said that they have gotten stuck between floors due to malfunctioning elevators, while some have witnessed elevators suddenly dropping on several occasions.
Others said that they had issues with the air conditioning during a heat wave in D.C., when temperatures spiked above 100 degrees. They swapped photos of the digital carbon dioxide and temperature monitors on their desks to show how hot it would get inside.
According to CBS News, when the temperature in D.C. hit 95 degrees on June 26, one employee’s desk monitor said the temperature inside the building was 84 degrees with 61 percent humidity.
Some employees were also relocated to a basement area near a firing range where federal law enforcement officials practice shooting, and have expressed their concern about high lead levels in the area.
The culmination of unbearable workplace conditions over the past few weeks has prompted multiple employees to speculate it might be a tactic by the agency to push them to resign, multiple employees told CBS News anonymously.
Last week, the EPA placed approximately 140 employees on administrative leave for signing a “Declaration of Dissent” that was sent to the agency’s administrator, Lee Zeldin, “opposing this administration’s policies, including those that undermine the EPA mission of protecting human health and the environment.”
According to The Washington Post, sources familiar with the matter said that some employees were physically escorted out of the EPA building.
“The Environmental Protection Agency has a zero-tolerance policy for career bureaucrats unlawfully undermining, sabotaging, and undercutting the administration’s agenda as voted for by the great people of this country last November,” an EPA spokesperson told the Daily Beast in a statement Thursday.
Hundreds of employees have already agreed to resign as part of the Trump administration’s deferred-resignation program called “Fork in the Road,” which will keep them on the federal payroll until September.
The White House blamed the recent, agonizing work conditions at the EPA on the Biden administration, claiming that it failed to maintain old buildings and pushed back maintenance on buildings that were left partially empty due to work-from-home options during the COVID pandemic.
“Joe Biden’s EPA wasted $4 million on a one-room museum instead of required maintenance for the building because employees weren’t actually required to show up to work,” Taylor Rogers, a White House assistant press secretary, told CBS News.
Zeldin announced that he would be closing Biden’s National Environmental Museum and Education Center in March.
“The Trump EPA is working diligently on improvements to their building, which will complete long-overdue maintenance to the carpet, elevators, air conditioning, and more for employees who have returned to work,” Rogers added.
A White House official added that the air conditioning in the White House has also been having issues recently.
Regarding the EPA’s building issues, an administration official said that new elevator parts had already been ordered, but would take more than a year to arrive.
EPA’s Office of Mission Support emailed employees informing them that they were trying to resolve the issue with the AC, while also reminding them that they try to “conserve energy” on days where it’s over 90 degrees.
Other officials said that although the area near the insulated firing range, which is next to the building some EPA employees were relocated to, used to have high lead level, it was dealt with during the Biden administration and is regularly tested for safety.
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