https://www.notus.org/agencies Agencies en-US Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:21:50 GMT https://www.notus.org/agencies/federal-judge-epa-trump-administration-unlawful-justice-block-grants Mark Alfred The agency’s decision to stop the $2.8 billion program was “arbitrary and capricious and unlawful,” the judge ruled. Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:21:50 GMT https://www.notus.org/agencies/federal-judge-epa-trump-administration-unlawful-justice-block-grants A federal judge on Thursday overturned an Environmental Protection Agency decision under President Donald Trump to shutter a $2.8 billion block grant program.

The EPA’s move to terminate the Biden-era Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant Program last year was “illegal,” U.S. District Judge Richard Mark Gergel wrote in an opinion.

In February 2025, the EPA started to unravel the ECJ Program following President Donald Trump’s executive order “Unleashing American Energy” that required agencies to “pause the disbursement” of such funds.

Not long after, a coalition of nonprofits and cities — including Baltimore, Nashville and San Diego — sued the federal government to retain grants they had been awarded under the program.

On Thursday, Gergel, an Obama appointee, sided with the coalition, writing that “there is no doubt that Defendants’ internal guidance terminating the ECJ Program … was arbitrary and capricious and unlawful.’’

However, he denied the coalition's request to compel the EPA to reimplement the ECJ program by taking measures such as rehiring staff, writing, “the requested relief appears impractical.”

“Plaintiffs, however, are of course free to pursue their claims for alleged unlawful termination of their grants in the CFC,” Gergel wrote in his ruling, referring to the Court of Federal Claims.

Republicans’ “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act of 2025 ordered the EPA to pull back any remaining money obligated to the program, although most funds had already been awarded.

The EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.]]> https://www.notus.org/trump-white-house/schedule-f-fire-federal-workers-trump-eo Eric Katz Administration officials reject claims that “Schedule F” will lead to loyalty tests in the government ranks. Wed, 03 Jun 2026 20:16:05 GMT https://www.notus.org/trump-white-house/schedule-f-fire-federal-workers-trump-eo President Donald Trump has formally moved thousands of federal employees to a new job classification to make it easier to fire them for any reason, finalizing a process that many lawmakers, advocates and employees warn will lead to a politicization of the career civil service.

Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday that served as the final step in the long-anticipated implementation of the new Schedule Policy/Career system, which administration officials said will strip around 8,000 employees of the due process rights that have typically been afforded to the roughly 2 million nonpolitical appointees who work in federal agencies around government. Many of those rights date back to a 19th-century law meant to end the era of a government dominated by political patronage. The laws were most recently updated by the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act that passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

Trump administration officials told reporters Wednesday there would be no political litmus test for federal employees subject to the reclassification.

“It's also about a restoration, in our mind, of the democratic process,” Scott Kupor, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, said during a briefing on the order. “There are zero loyalty tests in this.”

Administration officials previously estimated as many as 50,000 employees would convert to the new designation, but they said in the end Trump opted for a far smaller number.

“This is what the president decided to do for the time being,” a senior administration official said, adding Trump could add more people to the list if he decides to do so, but “I would not suspect that anything is going to be imminent or impending.”

The Trump administration in February issued final regulations to implement the new classification system, which followed an executive order the president signed on his first day in office last year. The regulations established that agencies would determine which employees serve in policy-related roles. Those employees would then lose their rights to advance notice of forthcoming disciplinary action, an opportunity to respond to that decision and the chance to appeal it before a third party.

Under Trump’s new order, those designated for conversion will serve as at-will employees, a category previously reserved for political appointees and a small subset of career staff.

Trump attempted to issue the policy — then known as Schedule F — in the waning days of his first term, but ran out of time before it could take effect.

At least some agencies, such as the Health and Human Services Department, have already begun notifying employees that they would be converted to the new category. HHS said, however, the formal reclassification would not occur until Trump signed the executive order.

Administration officials said selections for reclassification were based on position duties. That overwhelmingly included staff at the very top of the federal employee pay scale, such as supervisors who lead agency subcomponents, provide strategic direction for their agency, spearhead the issuance of regulations or guidance, influence spending decisions, develop human resources policy or engage in policy advocacy.

A coalition of groups representing federal employees is currently suing over the policy — the suit is still pending in federal court. Those groups and others argue the new schedule system violates federal employees’ constitutional rights and undermines existing statutory protections. Converting large swaths of federal employees to at-will employment could make them vulnerable to the political whims of the administration, lead to firings based on loyalty and erode the expertise that the career civil service is designed to develop, they have said.

Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, a non-profit group leading the lawsuit against the administration over Schedule Policy/Career, said Trump’s new order could lead to a “purge of experienced public servants” that would harm the public.

“For generations, our country has relied on a professional, nonpartisan civil service,” Perryman said. “The people responsible for protecting our public health, safeguarding our environment, delivering our mail, managing our airports, protecting our public lands, and enforcing our laws should be allowed to do their jobs, not targeted by the same government they serve.”

The administration has said Article II of the Constitution grants the president the authority to remove federal workers without due process, and that existing civil service law is an “overcorrection” to historical abuses of power. A senior administration official said on Wednesday that any effort to cast the new schedule policy as a politicization of the civil workforce was due to “historical ignorance.”

“The purpose here is for positions that are senior positions with significant influence over policy, that they can be held accountable for effectively carrying out the law and advancing administration priorities,” the official said.

The officials stressed that hiring would be based on merit, though the administration has taken various actions to inject politics into the federal recruiting and selection process. Most federal job posts, for example, require applicants to write a short essay about their favorite Trump policies.

Agencies have spent months gathering lists of employees to reclassify. Ultimately, OPM and the White House had final say over which employees were included. OPM will issue final implementation guidance this week and agencies will have seven days to carry out the necessary administrative actions.]]> https://www.notus.org/policy/usda-bed-bugs-infestation Eric Katz The department sent staff home twice, but has declined to do so a third time after the insects returned. Tue, 02 Jun 2026 17:12:18 GMT https://www.notus.org/policy/usda-bed-bugs-infestation A bed bug infestation at an Agriculture Department building is riling agency staff, reigniting frustrations over remote work policy and making at least some employees sick.

The bugs were found in the building that houses the Animal and Plant Inspection Service, the agency responsible for containing and mitigating the spread of invasive pests in the U.S. The irony, one USDA employee said, “was lost on no one.”

The George Washington Carver Center in Beltsville, Maryland, first notified employees of the situation in mid-May, according to five employees familiar with the matter and a transcript of a town hall meeting obtained by NOTUS. The department opted to send employees home and allow them to telework for a few days to fumigate the building.

When employees returned, however, they complained of noxious fumes and resulting sickness, and USDA once again authorized them to work remotely. The telework approval was a rare exception to the Trump administration’s push to require all federal workers to report to their normal workplaces five days per week.

On Friday, USDA officials notified employees that bed bugs were again observed in the building. This time around, three employees said, the department has not authorized any additional telework. Instead, department leadership told employees to take personal vacation time if they did not want to report to the office.

Employees at two USDA agencies, APHIS and the Agricultural Research Service, report to the GWC campus. The bugs were found specifically in the building that houses APHIS, though USDA fumigated the entire GWC Center.

In the town hall meeting last month, Kelly Moore, the acting APHIS administrator, and Carson Hawley, its acting chief operating officer, told employees they expected the building would only be closed for a few days but would email them later to confirm. APHIS made that immediate decision unilaterally, they said, but USDA owns the building and would make future determinations.

In the interim, employees told one another they felt disgusted by the conditions and, in some cases, became so paranoid that they were constantly itchy. The back-and-forth nature has also left staff distraught as they await the next turn of events.

“They treated the building, and then they sent people home again because of offgassing,” said another employee, who, like all of those quoted in this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal. “Then they came back. Now there’s more bedbugs.”

Another worker said employees had “returned to an office that was making them sick because the chemicals hadn’t aired out.” That person lamented that employees were required to take personal leave if they did not want to work in a building still infested with bed bugs, noting many of them rely on public transportation and had not received instruction on preventing the spread of the insects in that setting.

In an email to staff on Friday, Hawley suggested that employees were responsible for the return of the bed bugs as they engaged in “insufficient compliance regarding personal items.” She instructed employees to place all those belongings into garbage bags and remove them from the building.

“We appreciate your support and compliance so that APHIS can do our part to ensure that Building 3 is bedbug free,” Hawley said.

A USDA spokesperson also attributed the bed bugs’ reemergence to employee negligence. The spokesperson declined to explain why employees have not been offered another chance to work remotely.

“USDA took prompt and robust action several weeks ago,” the spokesperson said. “Unfortunately, personal belongings left in the offices caused further issue. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service management is working with employees to ensure the spaces are emptied for proper mitigation.”

Employees said they were hesitant to bring their belongings out of the office and further risk introducing bed bugs into their own homes. They have also discussed among themselves the possibility of filing a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, but fear retribution for doing so.

“They are scared,” one worker said of their colleagues. “If you bring them home, the answer is to trash all of your belongings and fumigate your house at your own expense.”

APHIS is currently responding to crises including bird flu and the spread of New World screwworm, which in recent days was found within 50 miles of the U.S. border. Those response efforts are not centralized in Washington, though some staffers raised concerns about the impacts the hazardous working conditions and the push for staff to take time off would have on that critical work.

“Not allowing employees to telework while the office is infested with bed bugs is an unnecessary significant risk to U.S. cattle health, with experts dealing with the NWS situation forced to go home if they don’t want to get bed bugs,” one employee said.

Staff also questioned why USDA did not authorize a special category of paid time off known as “weather and safety leave,” which federal agencies can turn to when conditions arise that prevent employees from “safely performing work at an approved location.”

USDA is currently looking to relocate thousands of employees out of the Washington region as part of a larger reorganization effort. That is set to result in the offloading of the George Washington Carver Center.]]>