More reports surfaced this week of personnel cuts within multiple agency offices, with employees tied to environmental justice programs going on administrative leave. 

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, and several news outlets confirmed, that the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights had placed around 170 employees on administrative leave. 

The OEJECR, per EPA’s website, handles both federal civil rights law disputes for applicants of federal financial assistance from the agency, as well as conflict resolution, helping ensure, “the just treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of income, race, color, national origin, Tribal affiliation, or disability in agency decision making and other Federal activities that affect human health and the environment,” per a Clinton-era executive order. 

CNN reported that acting Assistant Administrator of the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights Theresa Segovia told OEJECR employees on a call Thursday that those who had “performed 50% or greater duties in environmental justice or non statutory work” would be placed on administrative leave.

The move comes as Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo Wednesday that rescinded previous environmental justice programs within the Justice Department to “ensure that the Department engages in the even-handed administration of justice.”

Following that memo, reports surfaced that the DOJ had shuttered its Office of Environmental Justice, which was created in 2022 and housed within the department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, and placed its employees on administrative leave, with Reuters placing the number at four employees, plus another 20 within ENRD facing a reduction in force action. 

At the Energy Department, web pages on the department’s environmental justice document and publications, as well as its Office of Energy Justice Policy and Analysis, now redirect to the DOE homepage, outlining the Trump administration’s plan to “restore energy dominance.”

Reports surfaced shortly after the inauguration that 25 staffers from the department’s Office of Energy Justice Policy and Analysis have been placed on administrative leave.

The Trump administration’s efforts to encourage employees from across the federal government to accept a “deferred resignation” were temporarily halted Thursday by a court order. 

However, officials from the Office of Personnel Management tweeted Thursday night that the deadline to accept the resignation “is being extended to Monday, February 10, at 11:59pmET” and that the program “is NOT being blocked or canceled.”