More than 100 employees of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Chicago office have been warned by President Donald Trump’s administration that they may be fired.
The warnings came in an email sent last week to workers who have not yet completed a “probationary” time period before they become protected employees.
“As a probationary/trial period employee, the agency has the right to immediately terminate you,” the email said. “The process for probationary removal is that you receive a notice of termination, and your employment is ended immediately.”
The agency is expected to be handcuffed by Trump over the next four years, though the president has promised air and water will be protected from pollution.
Similar warning emails were sent to EPA offices across the country, according to The New York Times.
Trump has already offered almost all the more than 3 million federal workers a form of buyout that may not be legal.
“This attack on the EPA workforce is unprecedented in scope and scale,” said Nicole Cantello, president of the union that represents hundreds of employees in Chicago. “The result of these simultaneous actions could be a severe slowdown or shutdown of EPA’s work protecting human health and the environment in the Great Lakes.”
It’s been expected that Trump will take actions to reduce inspections and enforcement of pollution laws at the agency since that’s what he carried out during his first term in office.
Trump is also shutting down research and other government programs around climate change. This was also seen in his first administration.
Chicago is the Midwest regional hub for the environmental agency. From the Loop office, the EPA oversees Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin and 35 Native American tribes.
Last week, the U.S. Senate confirmed former New York Congressman Lee Zeldin as Trump’s pick to head the environmental agency.
There’s no word on who will oversee the Chicago regional office.
An EPA spokeswoman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the job warnings to new employees.