"Is staying here worth the grief?" Surely that's one of the most distressing questions you can ask yourself about your job; I've done it myself. Now three enforcement officials at EPA have asked it, and decided, "Nope."
"The rug was pulled out from under us," said Rich Biondi, who is retiring as associate director of the air enforcement division of the agency. "You look around and say, `What contribution can I continue to make here?' and it was limited."Cynthia Bergman, a spokeswoman for the agency, said of the departures, "This is an office of several hundred employees — and to have one political appointee and two career employees leave is not indicative of unrest or departmentwide frustration."
Two other top enforcement officers left the agency in protest in 2002. Upon hearing of the latest departures, one had this to say: "We will see more resignations in the future as the administration fails to enforce environmental laws."
It's no coincidence this happened after the August decision to relax the rules about air pollution, allowing utility companies to avoid upgrading pollution controls when making repairs to their plants.
I've been in that boat; I once saw everyone in my department quit within six months, and I was the only one left standing. It's an unpleasant feeling. "Are they right? Am I wrong?" are not happy questions. (For the record, I shifted to the parent company and lasted another three years or so.)
Posted by Linkmeister at January 7, 2004 09:33 PM