vvjl E.P.A. Workers Who Assist Heavily Polluted Communities Are Put on Leave

One hundred and sixty-eight employees at the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice were placed on administrative leave on Thursday, according to agency officials.

Combined with the effort by Congress to force TikTok to cut its ties with its Chinese owners, the initiative is a major addition to the administration’s efforts to seal off what it views as major cybervulnerabilities for the United States. But the effort has, in effect, begun to drop a digital iron curtain between the world’s two largest economies, which only two decades ago were declaring that the internet would bind them together.

The notification of leave, sent via email to employees about 5 p.m., was a major step in President Trump’s widely expected plan to do away with the office. On his first day back in the White House, he signed an executive order to eliminate all government programs on environmental justice, which are aimed at helping poor and minority communities that are face disproportionate amounts of pollution. These communities are often located near industrial areas or other heavily contaminated places.

“E.P.A. is working to diligently implement President Trump’s executive orders,peso99 login including the ‘Ending Radical and Wasteful Government D.E.I. Programs and Preferencing,” said Molly Vaseliou, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, in a statement, referring to a directive to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs. “President Trump was elected with a mandate from the American people to do just this.”

Ms. Vaseliou said that the work of the staffers placed on leave “did not relate to the agency’s statutory duties or grant work.”

Many of the agency’s additional 100 or so environmental justice employees who work in its regional offices around the country are expected to be the next in line to be placed on administrative leave, said two people familiar with the agency’s plans, who spoke anonymously out of fear of retaliation.

By law, no employee can be on administrative leave for more than 10 days in a year. Observers said they interpret the administrative leave notices as a first step toward the eventual shuttering the office.

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