Energy, enviro agencies eager to resume layoffs

The Trump administration says a court freeze has caused "confusion and paralysis."

June 10, 2025

Trump administration officials are anxious to resume sweeping layoffs inside energy and environmental agencies as they push the Supreme Court to green-light their plans.

The administration’s push for large-scale layoffs are on hold across much of the government due to a lower court’s sweeping order. But the administration — arguing that it’s being forced to keep “large numbers of employees on the payroll without necessity” — is making a case to the Supreme Court that it ought to urgently intervene to allow those layoffs to proceed.

The Trump administration on Tuesday submitted its latest plea to the Supreme Court, saying that the lower court’s injunction has caused “confusion and paralysis” within the executive branch and that agencies are being blocked “from taking needed steps to make the federal government and workforce more efficient.”

The Justice Department previously told the Supreme Court in its June 2 request that 40 reductions in force in 17 agencies had been paused by the court. The layoffs put on hold by the court include staff reductions expected at EPA and the Interior and Energy departments.

Blocking planned layoffs from moving forward, the administration argued, comes at an “unrecoverable taxpayer expense” and frustrates the Trump team’s ”efforts to impose budgetary discipline and build a more efficient workforce.”

Major restructuring and staff cuts are expected at energy and environmental agencies.

EPA began sending layoff notices to its employees in April, prior to the injunction. President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin have signaled major cuts are in store for that agency’s workforce, and top officials are continuing to march on with reassignment interviews under language in the injunction allowing "internal planning activities."

Staff cuts are also expected as part of a major reorganization at the Interior Department and at the Energy Department, where an internal document deemed only about half of that agency’s staff as “essential.”

The administration has not made its broad layoff plans public nor has it announced specific targets for agencies’ workforce reductions. But Trump directed agencies in a February executive order to initiate large-scale reductions in force.

Administration officials directed agency bosses to aim to implement their broad layoff and restructuring plans by Sept. 30, although it’s unclear whether the court’s pause will impact that timeline.

Unions and other groups urged the Supreme Court to reject the administration’s latest bid to let those layoffs proceed.

“There will be no way to unscramble that egg,” Trump’s challengers told the Supreme Court this week. “If the courts ultimately deem the President to have overstepped his authority and intruded upon that of Congress, as a practical matter there will be no way to go back in time to restore those agencies, functions, and services.”

The administration looks “forward to ultimate victory at the Supreme Court,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in an email.

The administration “won’t be entertaining hypotheticals,” she said in response to questions about agencies’ planning in the event that the injunction is lifted. “The Trump administration utilized lawful executive authority to review and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse throughout all agencies on behalf of the American people,” Rogers said.

EPA eyes deep cuts

Layoffs had already begun at EPA, which sent 280 environmental justice employees notices in late April telling them they would either be fired or assigned to a different division by the end of July.

But aside from the elimination of the entire environmental justice office, many of the agency's program offices remain in limbo.

According to the White House's fiscal 2026 budget blueprint, the Trump administration is aiming to cut 9 percent of EPA's staff from 14,130 in fiscal 2025 to 12,856 next year.

More than 3,000 staffers have signed up to take one of EPA's "early out" offers. Those who receive agreements had a deadline of June 16 to accept or decline.

Political leaders have told some employees, including those in the agency's chemicals office, not to worry about layoffs. Even if their current position is eliminated, they will be reassigned elsewhere.

But the agency's researchers are bracing to get hit the hardest, in line with leaked plans to dissolve the Office of Research and Development.

Research office staffers have been urged to apply for reassignments, but employees say specifics are scarce — including more detailed job descriptions or how many positions are available.

Interviews for those positions have resumed after a pause, and some have been presented with informal offers, "but no one can actually set anything in stone right now," said one EPA employee granted anonymity to speak on private reassignment processes.

EPA has put the research office's approximately 1,500 staffers on "a cruel and confusing path forward," said Nicole Cantello, an EPA employee and president of the Chicago-area chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees.

"They were to apply to those positions, and the rest? We don't know what's going to happen to them. But we assume they will be cut," Cantello said Monday.

EPA spokesperson Carolyn Holran said the agency "is complying with the court's preliminary injunction. In line with the court's order and guidance received by the Department of Justice, EPA is moving forward with only reorganization planning activities."

‘Radio silence’ at DOE as workers brace for overhaul

Big changes are afoot for DOE’s 16,000 employees, despite what staffers say is silence from top brass.

Internal documents viewed by POLITICO’s E&E News show DOE management is weighing RIFs across the agency as part of a larger reorganization and considers only 56 percent of its staff to be “essential.”

The Department of Government Efficiency has proposed cuts of up to 50 percent to DOE’s workforce, including slashing 54 percent of its staffers focused on science and innovation programs, and 61 percent to energy infrastructure and deployment, according to a fact sheet from Senate Democrats that a union leader submitted in court documents.

Career staffers worry that further cuts could hammer a department that’s already seen more than 3,500 employees leave voluntarily.

Kim Parker, president of the National Treasury Employee Union Chapter 228, which represents DOE staff, agreed that there is "radio silence" from the administration about what will happen going forward. The union is trying to avoid any additional RIFs or cuts, she said, given that upward of 3,000 staffers have already taken the deferred resignation program, some out of fear of losing their jobs.

“Our goal is not to move forward with the workforce reduction only because we have already lost a large number of critical employees," she said.

DOE did not respond when asked for comment about its plans pending court action.

Interior focused on ‘streamlining’ operations

Many of the Interior Department's agencies — the National Park Service, Bureau of Reclamation and Bureau of Land Management, among others — have already seen an exodus of staff amid multiple rounds of deferred resignation and retirement offers.

But Interior has refused to publicly discuss how many staff it has shed in recent months, or detail what additional cuts could come beyond an announced "streamlining" of administrative functions like human resources and information technology.

"Interior is focused on streamlining our core business operations, which will result in improved efficiencies and lower costs for American taxpayers," the agency's fiscal 2026 budget documents state.

"Further unifying our organization will create significant efficiencies across the Department by optimizing processes, eliminating redundant efforts, and helping streamline technology adoption. Interior will advance innovation, collaboration, and solutions that address the pressing challenges of our time,” the documents say.

An Interior spokesperson declined to detail how the agency is proceeding with its staffing plans amid the court injunction.

“The Department of the Interior remains committed to fulfilling its mission on behalf of the American people while upholding the rule of law,” said spokesperson Elizabeth Peace.

“The Department will continue coordinating closely with the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Justice to ensure compliance with all applicable court orders. At this time, we don’t have any further comment on personnel matters,” Peace said.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who is set to testify before both the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the House Natural Resources Committee this week, has previously said that he does not have "a specific goal in mind" for reductions.

“The goal is to make sure that we're doing a great job at the task that we have, the missions that we have, and so there is no specific headcount number that we're targeting,” Burgum said in April.

California Rep. Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, described the initial staffing cuts as "reckless layoffs."

"Americans are already paying the price for the president’s petty vendetta against hardworking public servants who just want to do their jobs," Huffman said in a statement to E&E News. "You can’t have an efficient government if you fire the people who make it work. Any further staff reductions would only make a bad situation worse. I look forward to hearing how Secretary Burgum responds to questions about this at Thursday’s hearing.”

A Washington Post report indicated that the White House could eliminate as many as one of four positions from Interior, which as of September 2024 counted nearly 60,000 employees.

Since the start of the second Trump administration, agencies have seen significant reductions in their staffs: Reclamation has shed about 25 percent of its staff, according to internal communications, while the National Treasury Employees Union has reported that about 1,000 BLM staffers have accepted buyouts, early retirement or deferred resignation offers.

Other potential cuts had been expected in offices including the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s Office of Renewable Energy, as well as various BLM state offices and directorates, before the federal court injunction froze those actions.

Budget requests show that Interior would also eliminate the biological research branch of the U.S. Geological Survey.


By:  Robin Bravender, Ellie Borst, Hannah Brownley, Jennifer Yachnin
Source: Politico Pro