The Environmental Protection Agency will soon employ the lowest number of workers since the Ronald Reagan administration.
Hundreds of employees have accepted buyouts and taken early retirement since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, according to an EPA official.
Congress put a cap on the number of people the EPA can employ at 15,000 in the 2017 omnibus bill. By the end of September, the EPA will employ 14,459 people, with dozens still considering buyout offers.
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If half of those individuals also choose to leave the agency, EPA employment levels would fall below 14,440. The last time EPA was at an actual employment level of 14,440 was in 1988, when Ronald Reagan was president. The number of employees at EPA fell even lower in 1989, before peaking at 18,110 in 1999.