Interim EPA head says hiring freeze hurting the agency

A Trump administration hiring freeze for the federal government is damaging the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA’s acting administrator said in a video message to employees on Wednesday. 

The freeze, instituted by Trump last month, “is already creating some challenges to our ability to get the agency’s work done,” acting administrator Catherine McCabe said in her video. 

She also said a Trump-mandated pause on existing regulations has caused concern from the EPA’s partners. The agency had to nix dozens of rules when Trump signed an executive order blocking agencies from issuing new regulations that were being written — but hadn’t been finalized — before President Obama left office on Jan. 20.  

{mosads}“We also recognize that the freeze on regulations is raising some questions,” McCabe said in her message. “We are continuing to work through those questions with the assistance of the transition team and guidance from the White House Office of Management and Budget.”

McCabe, a career staffer who is deputy director for the EPA’s Region 2, has released a series of videos explaining agency transition procedures since Trump took office in January. 

In her Wednesday video, she noted that the Senate could vote on Trump’s nominee to be EPA administrator, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, as soon as this week. 

That appointment — if approved, as expected, by the Senate — could bring major changes to the EPA’s operations. Trump is reportedly considering attending a swearing-in ceremony for Pruitt at EPA headquarters where he will sign a series of executive orders that could roll back the agency’s work on climate issues. 

“Whatever changes and challenges come, we know we can count on you to resound with professionalism,” McCabe said in her video. 

“We will continue to do our best to ensure that this agency’s decisions and actions are based on our two bedrock principles: carrying out the law and ensuring that the best science informs all that we do.”