As the 2025 government shutdown breezes through its third week and into its fourth, federal workers inside the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) are now bracing for what could be the end of their jobs as they know them. On October 10, the Trump Administration announced that it would be carrying out mass layoffs of federal workers within agencies while the government was shut down, which included a reduction in the workforce at the EPA.^[1] This was temporarily blocked by a federal judge in California on October 15, but still spells uncertainty for the future of the EPA’s workforce and overall mission.^[2] Meanwhile, the EPA’s core directives and responsibilities still cease to be carried out as the shutdown continues.^[3]

Politicians attribute the shutdown to Democrats and Republicans’ stalled negotiations over the latest spending bill that would keep the government open.^[4] Democrats want the government funding bill to “reverse the Medicaid cuts in President Trump’s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill passed this summer,” while Republicans want to uphold the tax breaks and cuts to federal healthcare programs.^[5]

While Senators on both sides of the aisle hold the line and gear up for what they expect to be one of the longest shut downs in history,^[6] the White House is attempting to slash federal agency jobs through  mass layoffs, called “Reduction In Force” (“RIF”) actions.^[7] These RIF actions have been challenged in court and lawmakers believe they will eventually be overturned.^[8] Federal workers are supposed to receive 60 days’ notice when they are subject to a RIF action, and the agency is supposed to consider veteran status, according to the Office of Personnel Management.^[9] However, even if these RIF actions are temporary, they may prove to be detrimental to the EPA’s general mission to protect the nation’s environment.

According to the EPA’s “Contingency Plan for Shutdowns”, there are several significant activities that the agency cannot carry out during a lapse in appropriations. These include issuing new grants, updating the EPA website, conducting research, civil enforcement inspections, issuing permits, guidance or regulations, and approving state requests.^[10] The agency retains about 900 essential employees during the shutdown, out of its normal 14,000.^[11]

There are some tasks the agency’s skeleton crew can still carry out while the government is shut down. According to the contingency plan, the agency can maintain law enforcement efforts and carry out its management and protection of federal lands.^[12] Additionally, the agency can continue to work out settlement agreements with “Potentially Responsible Parties” under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (“CERCLA”), that resolve liability of improper hazardous waste disposal, and carry out cleanup.^[13] This is because the spending associated with CERCLA is not appropriated each year by Congress; instead it comes from a special account that compiles money from interest, litigation costs, and a corporate tax to resolve liability settlements. Therefore, as long as there is money in the separate account, CERCLA agreements and actions can continue.

A former EPA official has voiced concerns that the shutdown will lead to an increase in environmental harms, and provide a green light for the country’s worst polluters to get away with circumventing EPA regulations because of the lapse in inspections.^[14] Former climate policy advisor at the EPA and former Vice President of Political Affairs at the Environmental Defense Fund, Jeremy Symons,^[15] says the shutdown leaves the environment vulnerable: “Toxic pollution doesn’t pause during a shutdown. When EPA goes dark, the protections that keep kids out of emergency rooms and toxic chemicals out of our water go unenforced.”^[16]

The length of the shutdown and the impending slashes to the workforce are prompting questions about the future of the EPA and its responsibilities. With a smaller EPA, will polluters continue to be held to the same standard to maintain clean water and air? Could CERCLA sites increase? Will the agency be able to keep up with its enforcement responsibilities for the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act? And if not, what does that mean for the country’s health, access to clean water, and the fight against climate change?  These questions will likely remain unanswered for as long as the shutdown continues, which seemingly has no end in sight.

 

 

^[1] Rachel Frazin, EPA to undergo layoffs amid shutdown fight, The Hill, (Oct. 10, 2025, at 4:42 PM), https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5550192-epa-layoffs-government-shutdown/.

^[2] Fiona Glisson & Ryan J. Reilly, Judge blocks Trump’s layoffs during shutdown, calling them illegal, NBC News, (Oct. 15, 2025, at 2:54 PM), https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/judge-blocks-trumps-shutdown-layoffs-calling-illegal-rcna237837.

[3] See US Environmental Protection Agency Contingency Plan For Shutdown, U.S. Env’t. Prot. Agency (Sep. 29, 2025), https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2025-09/epa-contingency-plan-9_29_25.pdf.

^[4] Mary Clare Jalonick & Stephen Groves, Democrats say they won’t be intimidated by Trump’s threats as the shutdown enters a third week, AP News, (Oct. 15, 2025, at 3:49 PM), https://apnews.com/article/government-shutdown-trump-democrats-firings-intimidated-senate-68b3fbc1317249faabc569ddf417f9a8.

^[5] Id.

^[6] Emily Brooks, Johnson: ‘We’re barreling toward one of the longest shutdowns in American history’, The Hill, (Oct. 13, 2025, at 11:35 AM), https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5552958-mike-johnson-government-shutdown/.

^[7] Reductions in Force (RIF), Off. of Pers. Mgmt., https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restructuring/reductions-in-force-rif/#url=span-stylepadding-7pxSummaryspan- (last visited Oct. 18, 2025).

^[8] Janie Har, Judge temporarily blocks the Trump administration from firing workers during the government shutdown, AP News,  (Oct. 15, 2025, at 8:26 PM), https://apnews.com/article/government-shutdown-layoffs-trump-unions-b312b3ca77cbdbc72e778ece3b2cbffc.

^[9] Off. of Pers. Mgmt., supra note 7.

^[10] U.S. Env’t. Prot. Agency, supra note 3.

^[11] Id.

^[12] Id.

^[13] Id.

[14] See EPA Shuts Down is a Toxic Taste of How Trump’s Dismantling of EPA Harms Americans’ Health and Safety, Env’t Prot. Network (Oct. 9, 2025), https://www.environmentalprotectionnetwork.org/20251009_furloughing_release/.

[15] Jeremy Symons, Env’t Prot. Network, https://www.environmentalprotectionnetwork.org/about/team/jeremy-symons/ (last visited Oct. 18, 2025).

^[16] Env’t Prot. Network, supra note 14.