ATLANTA — U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff is urging President Donald Trump’s administration to rehire Georgia employees at the Environmental Protection Agency so they can continue protecting air and water quality in the region.
According to a letter from Ossoff on Wednesday, he and members of the Georgia Congressional delegation and more from the southeast region, the employees at the Atlanta EPA office “play a critical role in public and environmental health” and should get their jobs back to continue their work.
“Reports indicate that EPA staff members have received emails indicating immediate dismissal due to their probationary status,” Ossoff and his colleagues wrote to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.
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“We are deeply concerned about the negative impacts such terminations—done across the board without consideration for positional need or programmatic impact—would have on the agency’s ability to protect public health and the environment in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee and across the nation,” the senators added.
Mentioning recent events in Georgia, like the chemical fire at the BioLab facility in Conyers, Ossoff and the others said the dismissal of the EPA employees working in Georgia and Mississippi for the Region 4 office had helped keep families safe after the fire.
“The dismissal of employees at the EPA Region 4 offices threatens the health and safety of all states in Region 4 and will undermine ongoing efforts to monitor and improve air and water quality, manage hazardous waste, and restore the ecosystem of the largest freshwater system in the world,” the letter said. “We urge you to consider the critical importance of these workers to the EPA’s mission and the potential adverse effects these terminations have on public health and the environment in our Nation.”
Region 4 includes Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and six tribes.
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