Following court rulings against the Trump administration’s mass firings of federal workers, hundreds of staff at the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other environmental agencies were notified Monday that they were being reinstated.

However, according to some agency letters and memos viewed by Newsweek and a statement from the EPA, most of those federal workers will be placed on leave while the matter is litigated and will not be allowed to do the jobs they were initially hired to do.

A letter from U.S. Department of Commerce acting General Counsel John Guenther, which was viewed by Newsweek, informs NOAA staffers who were previously terminated that they will be “placed in a paid, non-duty status” until litigation is resolved.

In an email to Newsweek, the EPA press office said that the agency has rescinded the termination notices to comply with a recent court ruling and reinstated approximately 419 people. “Affected employees are mostly in an administrative leave status,” the EPA said.

Thousands of federal workers including hundreds of staff members at the EPA and NOAA working in weather forecasting, fisheries management and a range of environmental science and policy offices were fired in late February at the recommendation of the Department of Government Efficiency, the quasi-governmental operation set up by Trump administration adviser Elon Musk.

Labor, environment and civil rights groups claimed the mass firings, which mostly affected employees with less than one year of service in their current positions, were illegal. On Thursday, two judges in California and Maryland ruled that many of the fired workers must be reinstated, at least temporarily, while the courts consider the legality of the firings.

“These moves show once again that the Trump team is creating more waste of taxpayer dollars than they are saving,” Jeremy Symons, senior adviser to the Environmental Protection Network, told Newsweek via email. The nonprofit group includes former EPA staff and scientists.

Tim Whitehouse, executive director at another nonprofit group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, said the organization has been in touch with hundreds of terminated employees who have been informed that they are being placed on administrative leave.

“They are getting paid to not do their jobs—they will have no access to any of their agency computers, emails or equipment,” Whitehouse told Newsweek.

Whitehouse said that paying federal employees while keeping them from their assigned tasks is evidence that the underlying motive is not about efficiency.

“The whole purpose here is to destroy federal agencies that are viewed as problematic for certain parts of our economy,” he said. “It’s not about efficiency, it’s not about lowering costs to the American citizens, it’s about fundamentally changing the way our system of government works.”

The EPA’s press office did not respond to emailed questions regarding how placing staff on leave achieves greater efficiency.

“I just want to do my job,” said Sarah Cooley, a scientist who was fired from NOAA, where she was program director for the Ocean Acidification Program. Cooley said the agency stands to lose people with decades of experience and skills that the government had paid to help develop.

She told Newsweek via email that “sidelining me and all the other NOAA employees who are on this hold doesn’t take advantage of our skills at all.”