(Some) Federal Employees’ Views on Working for New Admin: E&E News

I’m hoping we can continue our discussion leading to a future set of Transition Recommendations.  Oh, I added “reinstitute Employee Directory” to my list.

Meanwhile, I thought I’d take a look at some E&E News reporting on the election about federal employees. because I think we all need to be careful about characterizing the federal workforce as a bunch of partisan zealots.  I think it all depends on whom you interview and how you write the story.  Also, I’m expecting folks in some media to go back to characterizing what is BAU in a D admin (picking people they like) as Constitution-threatening when R’s do the same thing.

“Wednesday morning voiced a commitment to business as usual combined with a dose of outright fear and loathing as they faced the prospect of a second Trump administration.”

An Interior career official with more than 10 years working on energy issues said he was in a “dark place” and planning retirement. He said he was concerned about a “purge” of employees from the Trump administration after facing friction with political officials in the prior Trump term. “[Trump] is all about retribution,” he said.
Others were worried too.
“Donald Trump has made it clear he plans to weaponize the Department of Justice and significantly gut the career civil service,” said a DOJ attorney. “I fear for my department, my government, my livelihood and the survival of our democracy.”

I think most of us who have been around for awhile have had friction with political officials. Unsurprisingly, I’ve managed to do it with politicals in both parties, so there’s that.  I’m curious about the DOJ and “weaponizing.”  We have noticed some partisan charging and not-charging in the last Admin, does this count as “weaponizing?”

Inside the Energy Department’s hulking headquarters in downtown Washington, one career official said the agency’s leadership has been focused on moving forward regardless of the election outcome.
Even so, memories of a tumultuous shift under Trump after the 2016 election came flooding back for the worker.
“I’m a bit shell-shocked right now,” the employee said. “Last time we went through this, the politicals that came in were focused on having staff work on things that aligned with their political vision.”

I think it would be shocking if politicals didn’t focus on staff working on things they wanted.  Every Admin I’ve been in dutifully did this.  That’s how the voters get more or less a choice in the way the executive branch is run.  The Constitution doesn’t have an executive branch impervious to elections., with country being run in the way that career feds think best.

The staffer added that, while not knowing what the new appointees will want, “the fear is that they will be more focused on smashing up what the department has done during the Biden administration.”In particular, this employee worried about two Biden administration centerpieces, the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act.

Leaving out the fact that BIL and IRA are bills that Congress passed, I’m suspicioning that DOE employees in nuclear will like more pro-nuclear policies (assuming the Trump Admin is “all of the above”).

Now EPA is indeed a different kettle of fish.   In my experience, they are perhaps the more overtly partisan of the federal agencies, but can be equally dismissive of federal agencies whose missions involves doing things.

American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, EPA’s largest union that represents more than 9,000 employees, has worried about a second Trump administration. To shield staff, the union earlier this year wrapped up its latest collective bargaining agreement, which includes a first-ever scientific integrity article as well as whistleblower protections and diversity safeguards. “We fought for and won a union contract that puts our members in the best position possible to continue with the mission of the agency — regardless of who sits in the Oval Office,” AFGE Council 238 President Marie Owens Powell said in a statement.

Who decides what the mission of the agency is?  I’d guess it’s in a statute somewhere.  I just don’t think it’s a good look  to be saber-rattling at a new Admin, when you are supposed to be in the Executive Branch.  Of course, the campaign saber-rattled at them, and I’m sure it all goes back decades or more. We know that everything the Trump Admin does that employees and ENGOs don’t like will be leaked, used to generate donations, highlighted in the mainstream press, and litigated.

Let’s do a thought experiment.  Can you imagine BLM or FS employees and unions determining to continue with say the FLPMA or MUSYA mission of their agencies “regardless of who sits in the Oval Office.”.  Well, no, because there are trade-offs, and the real world is more complex than that.  Again, my experience with EPA is that there are many gray areas there as well, but as regulators, sometimes employees seem to feel that they are good guys and others are bad guys. EPA, BLM and USDA all get D politicals from ENGO’s, so it’s not that. I have never gotten that vibe from USFWS nor NMFS regulators, though.  Maybe that’s just unique to me, or maybe different regulatory agencies have different cultures.

If I were to advise the Trump Admin, I’d ask them to take those EPA FACA committees, and get a bipartisan committee to find a mix of people with different ideas and approaches.  It could even be like the Josh Penry approach to Colorado Roadless, each party picks some and they have to agree on some. For scientific advisory committees, the differences wouldn’t be overtly political but the same idea of finding reasonable people who disagree would hold.    Restacking them each Admin is not helpful, IMHO.  FACA committees can give Admins political cover to do reasonable non-partisan things, both with politicals and with employees (perhaps it would work, worth a try).

Other experiences, ideas?