EPA internal guidance recommends employees remove insignias during dangerous field work

Internal guidance issued to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees encourages them to manage risk in potentially dangerous field work by concealing agency insignias on clothing and equipment.

The guidance, distributed Tuesday and shared with The Hill, outlines procedures in scenarios it says may be particularly high-risk for violence in the field, citing factors such as remote locations, planned protests or demonstrations, street crime or recent local targeted violence — particularly gender-, race- or sexual orientation-based violence. In those scenarios, the guidance states, EPA employees should “avoid provocation,” including concealing insignias if necessary, as well as avoid being conspicuously lost.

The guidance also encourages employees to travel in pairs in the field if possible in such situations and ensure all government devices have tracking enabled. While traveling, the agency encourages employees to take well-traveled roads and only use clearly-marked taxis and rideshares.

The EPA did not specify whether any recent threats or incidents prompted the guidance, with an official referring The Hill to a recent statement by acting Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe saying “employee safety is one of our top priorities and we wanted to make sure that we had guidance in place as a precaution in the event situations arise.”

However, the email went out during a period when, in the aftermath of hurricanes Helene and Milton, misinformation has flourished. A North Carolina man was arrested earlier this month for allegedly threatening to harm Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) workers deployed to the western part of the state. While FEMA is under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security, EPA employees’ field duties can also include disaster response.

In August, after the FBI’s raid on former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in connection with alleged mishandling of classified documents, the EPA said in an email to employees that the agency “does not tolerate threatening behavior and no one is expected to tolerate such behavior while performing their work duties” following a spate of threats against federal employees.