Ireland Owens
Contributor
President Donald Trump on Wednesday signaled that his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) may be poised to make major job cuts.
Trump told reporters during the first presidential cabinet meeting of his second term that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin may cut roughly 65% of his agency’s workforce, according to multiple reports. The Trump administration has already started to lay off federal workers en masse from various agencies in order to deflate the government bureaucracy and reduce waste in federal spending.
“I spoke with Lee Zeldin, and he thinks he’s going to be cutting 65 or so percent of the people from environmental, and we’re going to speed up the process too at the same time,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “He had a lot of people that weren’t doing their job, they were just obstructionists, and a lot of people that didn’t exist.”
The Trump administration established the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on Jan. 20 to eliminate wasteful spending in the federal government. The department claimed to have already identified $65 billion in wasteful and even fraudulent spending. (RELATED: Turns Out Top Execs Of Org Picked For Billions By Biden EPA Are Big Time Democrat Donors)
Zeldin recently highlighted the most appalling mismanagement of taxpayer funds at the EPA, noting that billions were allegedly sent to left-wing nonprofits, even some linked to Democratic voter mobilization efforts under the previous presidential administration.
“President Trump, DOGE, and Administrator Zeldin are committed to cutting waste, fraud, and abuse across all agencies,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“After recently identifying $20 billion fraudulent in spending, Administrator Zeldin is committed to eliminating 65% of the EPA’s wasteful spending.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a statement provided by a White House spokesperson to the DCNF.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
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EPA should be enforcing real environmental regulations, not fabricated bogeymen like CO2. They should not be providing funding to anyone.
The EPA was set up by Nixon to reduce air, water and soil pollution.
There was never any mention of CO2 being evil, etc.
The skill set of the EPA should be strictly limited to air, soil, water pollution and nothing else.
For that, about 2000 people would be needed to co-ordinate with state agencies,
The states would pay for their own clean ups, not the federal government.
If states know ahead of time, they have to clean up their own mess, they will be more careful to make a mess.
Many projects would not be started, because they would be too messy
Nixon set up the EPA to distract the hippies while he dealt with domestic uprisings and the fallout from Vietnam. It was never designed to focus effectively on environmental improvement, though no doubt some good came of it.
“ though no doubt some good came of it”
That’s debatable.
True. No doubt environmental improvement could have come about without federal bureaucracy, but I do try to allow for the possibility.
“They should not be providing funding to anyone.”
That’s the part I’m thinking through. The waste exposed was transferring large sums outside the organization like a money laundering operation for connected friends. IF the waste was external transfers, then the same waste can not also be internal spending. The two categories are conceptually independent.
A regulatory agency should not provide any funding for anything other than payroll and paper clips. That seems a fundamental conflict of interest. Even research should be left to independently funded external entities. Nor should the agency itself determine the regulatory scope. Any other responsibility allows for a self-perpetuating mechanism.
Keep on DOGE’n
Like a BullDOGEr
An idea was floated awhile back, to return 20% of the money saved by DOGE directly to the people.
The checks won’t be large. A savings of $1B would only be a check of around $10 per person and 20% reduces that to $2/person. Though for a family of 4, that would be $8,
However, they are already claiming that DOGE has found over $65B. Now that would work out to $130/person and $520 for a family of four.
This is enough to start building a cadre of citizens who are in favor of keeping DOGE around.
Currently, the benefit of DOGE is to obscure and diffuse to catch the attention of the average citizen.
By decreasing the amount being borrowed each year, that eases pressure on interest rates allowing them to fall.
People will be happy when interest rates drop a point or two, but many, perhaps even most, won’t tie this drop in interest rates to the actions of DOGE. Meanwhile, the usual suspects who benefit from the waste, will be out in full proclaiming that without their particular scam, government, if not the entire economy will collapse.
Build a constituency that sees a direct benefit from the cutting of government waste. Great idea.
Another point is that the tendency or any bureaucracy is to grow. This goes double for a government bureaucracy. If DOGE, or something similar, with the sole charge of finding waste and corruption in other agencies. Make it so the agents of the new agency personally benefit from any waste or corruption that they find. This is an agency that can only grow, by making the other agencies shrink.
The first shot in that was to reign in contractors and on queue the president has signed an executive order
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/implementing-the-presidents-department-of-government-efficiency-cost-efficiency-initiative/
Try cue for queue.
And rein for reign.
Be patient with the homophonically challenged. It’s tough for them.
Probably spell check is involved too.
Ant Autocorrect/autoreplace trust Google to make you look stoopid
There’s no let up in blighty
Sussex to launch UK’s first climate justice undergraduate degree
University announces new BA, after survey found most 14- to 18-year-olds want more rigorous climate change education
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/feb/27/sussex-to-launch-uks-first-climate-justice-undergraduate-degree
Has any one told the Duchess?
Would she give a damn? I thought thet everything was wonderful on Planet Meghan.
Meghan Markle talks climate justice, Indigenous rights in Vancouverhttps://dailyhive.com/vancouver/meghan-markle-vancouver-climate-justice-indigenous-rights
Not indigenous to Sussex…
Last I heard Harry was going to Divorce Meghan sooo is everything alright in Megan Markle Land?
As Ever? As if.
Edit :Apologies, this was supposed to be a reply to Leon de Boer
Saw that too and flagged it as a story tip on another thread
Utterly shocking. As the climate hysteria is starting to die down and all of this nonsense falls out of favour with the public and even amongst politicians, trust Sussex to come up with this daft plan
The UK is definitely becoming an outlier in the western world, but I see some signs that it’s coming to an end, eg the decision on a new runaway at Heathrow
It is the very definition of a ‘Mickey Mouse’ degree.
Yes, and it sounds like someone’s hobby horse.
This might sell as a typical horse cr@p UK MA, but I can’t see it breaking even as a BA
Knowing how this sh1t works, I suspect someone in some bs humanities department convinced the department and senior management that this would sell,there is a ‘market’ for it and it would be good publicity for Sussex in terms of attracting more students
Problem is this would have been set in motion at least 12 months ago, probably more like 2 years
Universities started to implode last year for various financial reasons
There’s a good chance that whoever conceived this thing will never see it launched, and may even end up out of a job by 2026
If I were a hiring manager, any candidate with a degree with anything that ended in “justice” would go straight to the round file.
I’m skeptical that 14-to-18-year-olds want more climate change education.
They don’t have enough already?
Good point, it’s ubiquitous.
The kids I know who hit that age (recently) are in their bedrooms gaming. College is out of their minds and probably out of their league. (18 and 21 and still in the bedroom.)
I’m skeptical that it can be considered education. That would be a very euphemistic term.
When I was in college before the current dark ages the joke was “underwater basket weaving” which might take some amount of talent. How many departments/degrees/courses etc. now are just simple economics, chemistry, geology, etc.? Some compartments are reasonable, but fit the old joke about learning more and more about less and less so you know everything about nothing?
“climate justice undergraduate degree”
Seems like a safe path to graduate from an expensive school with limited job prospects.
Just what the UK needs, more university educated idiots with degrees that do nothing in the real world
RE: Sussex to launch UK’s first climate justice undergraduate degree
Ms. Markel may check into extension courses at UCSB (Santa Barbara):
University of California
Offers a climate justice curriculum that explores how climate change disproportionately impacts low-income communities and communities of color If not there, Colorado will see their degree and raise:
You can earn a degree in climate justice at several universities in the United States, including the University of Washington, the University of California, the University of Colorado, and Cornell.
University of Washington
University of California
University of Colorado
Cornell
University of Denver
CU degree: “Masters of the Environment”
Is that a subset of “Masters of the Universe”?
All of these “justice” degrees are just exercises in deciding that race is the cause of everything, and then going out to find (or manufacture) the evidence to prove it.
According to these people, if poor people live in squalor, it’s because racism/sexism/classism caused it.
The idea that poor people move to areas that undesirable to others because that’s all they can afford is rejected out of hand.
The fact that companies move to areas that cheap, rather than areas that are expensive, is rejected out of hand.
The fact that employees, especially those with limited fund, will move to be close to their jobs, even if the land is less desirable, because once again, that’s all they can afford, is rejected out of hand.
Yep. It’s entertaining watching Musk at work.
“and a lot of people that didn’t exist.””
Who has been getting their pay ???
How can any Federal agency be employing people that don’t even exist…
… something is seriously wrong !
It seems not to be the first report of that. First you start by letting people work from home for years, and never see their faces.
You hire them remotely and tell them to work remotely, and the check will be in the mail.
Not a bad gig for a former campaign operative between elections!!
No wonder they did not respond to DOGE emails and show up for work, because many are dead already for many years, but receive Social Security checks.
What is not to love when you are “in heaven”, courtesy of Uncle Sucker?
“and a lot of people that didn’t exist.””
It’s possible there are a few cases of employment fraud at any given time, but on the whole, it’s bullshit for media distribution. More federal employment dollars are spent on unnecessary extended coffee breaks.
The big ticket items are in program spending.
“Ghost workers” are an old scam. Have a few people in the right places, and it can go on until someone does a real audit.
I was reading a report about how one company was making millions managing empty buildings.
Pelosi’s building is empty. Likely managed by a Pelosi friend. Leave no stone unturned.
Trump is going to sell the building at a low enough price so it will be competitive getting tenants
Let’s hope they can do it.
It would be good if someone with US legal knowledge could comment on whether this is possible without serious legal roadblocks
There’s a lot of litigation going on now to try to halt some of the proposed actions by Trump and co, eg cuts to NIH funding.
And that litigation is getting shutdown. Personally I say prosecute those bringing these frivolous lawsuits.
I hope they shut down the NIH completely and put all virologists to good use in newly reopened coal mines
Spring is coming, plenty of farm work for unskilled labor, also construction ramping up so plenty of unskilled labor work. Lots of employment opportunities form government parasites to keep themselves fed.
There are roadblocks, but many will be cleared. For example, some NGOs sued in Federal court to restore USAID grants. The court ruled in their favor, but State dragged its feet. Plaintiffs went back to court and the judge again instructed the government to pay. State Dept then filed that all the contracts had been individually reviewed and either cancelled or reinstated (ie none were “paused” anymore, rendering the judgment largely mute). State said that plaintiffs who were owed money would be paid, but that a lot of the invoices received from them were inadequate, signaling that they intend to throw as much red tape as possible.
Not all department Secretaries will be as skilled at navigating bureaucracy as Marco Rubio. Zeldin was an attorney and a Congressman so he has some useful background but he might not be as good at understanding what he can “get away with”.
Trump also said at that Cabinet Meeting that the United States needs to increase its electricity output by about three times what it is currently, in order to satisfy future needs.
I don’t think they are going to be able to accomplish that with windmills and solar.
Start at the top.
It has. Trump is the top.
You really are not getting the point.
Back in the 60s and 70s pollution was understood to be a risk to health and wellbeing in that breathing, ingesting (eating and drinking) and exposure (primarily skin) would cause immediate heath or long term health problems. That understanding has been redefined from environmental concerns to climate alarmism.
Humans produce CO2 and methane. There is no means to eliminate the human emissions.
That being said, exposure to CO2 is not a health issue. Flatulence sometimes has an offensive aroma, of course, but those levels of methane are innocuous otherwise.
While a lot of talk is ongoing about the endangerment finding and the wording in the IRA, the solution is simple and clear.
We need a precise definition of pollution and the associated risk. Basically a turn the page back to the original definitions. The zero threshold criterion also needs major revision.
Otherwise, we will have to define H2O as a pollutant (in excessive quantities it can kill) and take every human on the planet to court on charges of CO2 and methane and H2O pollution.
The efforts decades ago to clean up our act were highly successful. The EPA completed the job and like every federal bureaucracy, had to find justification for existence well beyond completing its original core mission.
From my point of view, Li ion batteries need to be banned as environmental hazards. The risk of battery fires is not zero and the serious pollution that occurs when those components burn creates an environmental disaster and real risk to health and wellbeing.
We used to have a precise enough definition although pollution has varying degrees of scale. There is contamination, pollution, and nuisance. The confusion is calling carbon dioxide a contaminant which is dangerous enough to require immediate action. The word pollution has often been used for all three. Although not at the the scale of claimed climate damage Li ion fire would be a contaminant. Gorlinski, J. S. 1957. Legal basis for water pollution control in California.pp. 61-63, In Waste Treatment and Disposal Aspects to Development of California Pulp and Paper Resources. California Control Board Publication. 3-A. 548pp.
There used to be serious real acid pollution from these plants. This is getting to be a noxious nuisance.
If one defines DEI, Green New Deal, and deindustrialization as contrary to current policy, much of the Biden EPA goes away.
“Administrator Lee Zeldin may cut roughly 65% of his agency’s workforce”
and
“Administrator Zeldin is committed to eliminating 65% of the EPA’s wasteful spending”
Two quotes from same article, I need to decide how I should feel about that. Even philosophical opponents need to eat.
I don’t think it is the government’s job to provide paychecks to people whose talents are not needed in a particular agency. If they are good at something, but not needed in an agency, let them get private sector jobs. They do exist.
If they don’t have useful talents, then hunger is a powerful motivator towards going out and getting such talents. As long as individuals are protected from the consequences of their folly, there is no reason for them to make the necessary changes.
People need to eat, but not on the publics dime.
Yeah. It got much harder for me to learn new things somewhere in my 40s though. I hope the older guys get a good exit package even if I in the private sector might not.
The disparity between public sector retirement and private sector retirement is something I’d like to see a government address. I don’t have an answer but the public sector versions are designed for lifetime employment with federally backstopped investment schemes.
In years past, government workers had lower salaries, but high job security.
Thanks to government unions, government workers are now paid better than their private sector counter parts, and have even better retirement packages than they did before.
More good news.