Tag Archives: EPA

How Important Is The EPA

EPANot very.

Are fewer than one of every 10 Environmental Protection Agency employees essential to its work?

Only federal employees classified as “essential” can work during a government shutdown. At EPA, that means just 6.6 percent of its workforce, according to Reuters.

Of the agency’s 16,205 employees, a mere 1,069 will work through the shutdown. That means that taxpayers employ 15,136 people at the EPA who are “non-essential.”

This shut down may, or not, make us look a little silly among the world’s nations.  And, indeed, this is all shenanigans.  But there is good news to this:

Because of the shutdown, the EPA will not be able to work on the rules requested by President Obama in his climate plan, but Dina Kruger, a consultant and former climate change director at the EPA, said the agency would be able to complete the rules on time. It might just have to “work a little harder” once the shutdown ends.

The shutdown will also delay the comment period for the EPA’s New Source Performance Standards – the proposal that would make it nearly impossible to open a new coal plant – which started on September 20, 2013.

Good news to be sure.