EPA furloughs employees after using carryover funds to keep them working

The Environmental Protection Agency has begun sending furlough notices to its employees after keeping them on the job for the first nine days of the government shutdown.

The EPA’s latest contingency plan calls for furloughing the vast majority of its workforce during a lapse in funding. But the agency, up until this point, tapped into carryover funds to keep nearly all of its employees working.

Other agencies are also furloughing more of their staff, as the shutdown continues into its second week and as lawmakers are no closer to reaching a deal to end it.

The IRS furloughed nearly half its employees on Wednesday, after utilizing billions of dollars in Inflation Reduction Act funding to keep staff working for the first five business days of the shutdown.

Justin Chen, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, said some employees have already received their furlough notices, but said the rollout has been “scattershot and seemingly random.”

“We have people in my office working in the same division that have been furloughed, while others haven’t,” Chen said.

An EPA spokesperson told Federal News Network that the agency is “operating according to our lapse plan.”

Only about 11% of EPA’s more than 15,000 employees would continue working during a government shutdown, according to its contingency plan.

“Congressional Democrats have chosen to shut down the government. If they want to reopen the government, they can choose to do so at any time,” the spokesperson said.

Both furloughed and excepted federal employees are typically guaranteed back pay once a shutdown ends.

But the Office of Management and Budget circulated a memo on Tuesday, stating that lawmakers would have to explicitly include language in a stopgap funding bill for federal workers to receive back pay after the shutdown.

The Trump administration has also floated the idea of laying off furloughed federal employees, although these plans have yet to be implemented.

Just before the shutdown began, former EPA officials told reporters that the agency is “very susceptible” to layoffs.

The agency has already lost about 4,000 staff through layoffs and voluntary incentives, including voluntary retirements and the deferred resignation program. The Trump administration also proposed a 55% cut to EPA funding as part of its fiscal 2026 budget request.

Jeremy Symons, a senior advisor for the Environmental Protection Network, said the furloughs will put a hold on inspections, pollution oversight and permitting nationwide.

“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,” Symons said.

Tim Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said furloughing most EPA staff “will have lasting negative impacts on the environment of this country.”

“This is yet another blow to the hardworking employees at EPA, who have witnessed so much destruction to their agency over the past 10 months,” Whitehouse said.

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