Environmental Protection

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on three former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) employees who made allegations against EPA and then resigned, focusing on: (1) why the individuals had left; and (2) their current employment status.

GAO noted that: (1) six of the 20 individuals who sent the letter making allegations to the Washington Times newspaper no longer work at EPA; (2) three of these individuals left as a condition of settlement agreements resolving complaints they filed against EPA; (3) another two individuals, who had been working under either an interagency agreement or under a grant, left when the interagency agreement appointment expired or when EPA no longer required the individual's services; (4) another individual was removed from his position for unacceptable work performance; (5) for those individuals no longer working at EPA, as of February 1999, three are unemployed, one has found new employment working at a university teaching biological engineering, and the employment status of one employee is unknown; and (6) another individual remains on EPA's payroll but has a 2-year assignment at a university and has agreed to resign or retire from the agency no later than May 2003.