Landscape Architect & Specifier News

MAR 2018

LASN is a photographically oriented, professional journal featuring topics of concern and state-of-the-art projects designed or influenced by registered Landscape Architects.

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EPA is Reducing Number of Employees by Half President Trump wants to cut more than $2.5 billion out of the EPA's budget. Trump's recently released budget for 2019 proposes reducing EPA's enforcement budget 17% below the spending level for 2018. PHOTO: PRESIDENT TRUMP WITH EPA CHIEF ADMINISTRATOR SCOTT PRUITT. In accordance with President Trump's stated goal to reduce the size of governmental agencies and lower the taxpayers' burden, the EPA is implementing a hiring freeze; secondarily, nearly half of the current employees are eligible to retire by 2021. As of January 3, the EPA had 14,162 employees, with that number steadily dropping. The last time the EPA had fewer than 15,000 employees was during the final fiscal year of Ronald Regan's presidential term in 1988. It is estimated that if every EPA employee eligible to retire by 2021 did so, the total number of people employed by the EPA would plummet from just over 14,000 to just under 8,000. It was stressed by an EPA spokesperson that nobody is being fired, but that many people are retiring willingly, being "bought out," or accepting terms for early retirements. "We're proud to report that we're reducing the size of government, protecting taxpayer dollars and staying true to our core mission of protecting the environment," said EPA Chief Administrator Scott Pruitt. Pruitt has said the agency has "morphed into something that was almost like a superagency." Pruitt, during his tenure as Oklahoma attorney general, sued the EPA 14 times. In December 2017, the New York Times ( https://tinyurl.com/ydeyd6h7 ) suggested that several of the people who have recently left the EPA were key to the success of the agency. At this moment, with the hiring freeze in place and the many employees retiring, it is not clear if or to what degree the EPA's mission is compromised. Note: The Environmental Integrity Project has just complete a new report titled, "Paying Less to Pollute: A Year of Environmental Enforcement under the Trump Administration. ( https://tinyurl. com/y8mmrr76 ) 96 Landscape Architect and Specifier News I n f o r m a t i o n R e q u e s t # 6 7 2

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