The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency placed several of its Duluth laboratory employees on leave for signing a letter criticizing the Trump administration’s politicization of the agency, a move the union and Democratic politicians said violates federal workers’ right to free speech.
According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, approximately six people at the EPA’s Great Lakes Toxicology and Ecology Division Laboratory, 6201 Congdon Blvd., are on leave after signing a letter published late last month urging EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to recommit the agency to protecting human and environmental health and “restore EPA’s credibility as a premier scientific institution.”
“EPA employees join in solidarity with employees across the federal government in opposing this administration’s policies, including those that undermine the EPA mission of protecting human health and the environment,” the letter, organized by Stand Up For Science, said.
While several signatures were originally public, they have since been removed from the website, which now lists 620 anonymous signers.
The EPA said it placed 139 employees on paid leave to investigate their use of official titles when signing the letter. The agency said the letter “contains information that misleads the public about agency business.”
However, the agency did not respond to the News Tribune’s request to explain why the letter was misleading.
“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 said in an email.
In a letter to Zeldin on Tuesday, Democrats on the U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee said that statement was “effectively concluding and publicly announcing that these individuals had somehow violated the law before an investigation was even conducted.”
“Taking adverse actions against employees for making a protected disclosure — including investigating them and placing them on administrative leave — in a manner that deters others from coming forward is a textbook violation of the Whistleblower Protection Act,” wrote Reps. Frank Pallone, D-New Jersey; Paul Tonko, D-New York; and Yvette Clarke, D-New York.
Nicole Cantello, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 704, which represents some 1,000 EPA employees in the Midwest, said in a news release that the union expected to take legal action against the agency.
“This is an act of blatant political retaliation — pure and simple,” Cantello said. “My message to EPA Administrator Zeldin is this: EPA employees have the right to freedom of speech just like everyone else. We’ll see you in court.”
Further cuts feared
There are also renewed fears that mass firings could be coming to the EPA.
Uncertainty has swirled at the lab since March, when the Trump administration’s plans to cut the EPA’s Office of Research and Development were first reported by the New York Times. The Duluth freshwater lab is part of ORD.
A portion of the reduction plan, shared earlier this year with the News Tribune by Science Committee Democratic staff, said the EPA planned to “eliminate” the ORD and expected 50%-75% of its more than 1,540 positions “will not be retained.”
In May, EPA officials told ORD employees they could retire early, leave voluntarily or apply for approximately 500 job openings at other EPA offices, the News Tribune previously reported.
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Meanwhile, funding ended for 25 early-career researchers when the EPA did not renew a contract and canceled a grant.
The lab employed 176 people, according to an April 2025 fact sheet.
Any widescale reduction in force or reorganization seemed to be on hold after a federal judge barred such action without working with Congress.
However, in a decision Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for the Trump administration to carry out a reduction in force of the federal workforce, renewing fear that mass firings were coming to the EPA and other federal agencies.
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