EPA workers erase their names after political stunt backfires

The Information Age brought rapid technological progress and unprecedented access to knowledge. But one rule still holds true: Once it’s on the internet, it’s there forever.

Some EPA employees are now learning that the hard way.

If publicly attacking your boss gets you fired in the private sector, doing so in the executive branch should have the same consequences.

The signatories of the now-infamous “Stand Up for Science” declaration — an act of open defiance against the Trump administration — are scrambling to erase their names after their stunt blew up in their faces. The petition, framed as a principled stand, was nothing more than a petulant swipe at a duly confirmed administrator carrying out the people’s mandate.

Now, these federal workers want to duck the consequences and are trying to rewrite history.

Several employees placed on leave after signing the letter hope that removing their names from the petition will shield them from accountability. Even the union officials who likely helped draft the statement lacked the backbone to leave their signatures in place. It’s yet another reason federal employee unions clash with the idea of genuine public service.

But they’re too late.

We at Democracy Restored have preserved all 388 names tied to this attempted bureaucratic mutiny. The so-called resistance within the federal government won’t get to disappear just because their stunt failed.

Cosplaying courage

Signing a petition or manifesto should demonstrate conviction. It’s meant to show political courage and reputational risk — something closer to “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor” than to anonymous internet whining. But when EPA employees try to quietly withdraw their signatures to avoid consequences, they reduce the entire effort to a farce. The petition becomes suspect, and its signers look unserious at best, cowardly at worst.

These federal workers don’t get to play both sides. They drew taxpayer salaries while inserting themselves into partisan fights, then tried to hide the evidence when the heat came. If they cared about science or the agency’s future, they wouldn’t have attempted to scrub their names. Their stunt revealed what they really wanted: to lash out at their boss — the American people — without accountability.

The “Stand Up for Science” campaign wasn’t just a case of weak knees. It was a condescending ploy by bureaucrats who think the public is too stupid to notice. They bet they’d get away with it. They lost.

In this age of performative outrage, maybe they thought their names didn’t matter. Maybe it’s enough that the letter existed, that the accommodating media publicized it, and that some guy in a bar may cite a declaration signed by hundreds of EPA employees as reason to vote against the president and his party.

They struck a blow for the revolution, with none of the messy personal blowback.

These individuals are cosplayers, seeking excitement by sticking it to the man. They are not a serious group of government officials or even serious grown-ups. An election didn’t go their way, so they’re acting out — or they were right up until the moment they realized their taxpayer-funded paychecks could be harmed.

Wiping the names from this petition illustrates that the hundreds of signatories are desperately vying for the attention and adoration of their political allies and like-minded friends. It also reveals the toxic culture of entitled partisanship that infects the public sector.

Zeldin called their bluff

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s action to address this matter was not only warranted, it was the correct response. By suspending the individuals who declared their intent to stand against the American people’s mandate to return scientific integrity to the federal government, Zeldin is taking the first steps to dismantle that culture.

If publicly attacking your boss gets you fired in the private sector, doing so in the executive branch should have the same consequences. Federal employees are not entitled to their jobs, and they’re certainly not entitled to perform them while extending a middle finger to the people who pay them.

RELATED: EPA moves to slash Obama-era gas can regulations: ‘VENT THE DARN CAN’

  Photo by Allison Joyce / Contributor via Getty Images

In all cases like this, the exemplars should be the signers of the Declaration of Independence (or perhaps that’s too grand a comparison for the EPA letter). The signers’ lives really were at stake, their fortunes hadn’t come from cushy civil service jobs, and they understood what “sacred honor” really meant. John Hancock is the greatest example of this: Not only did he sign his name first, but he signed it large, loud, and proud so that the British knew exactly who stood against them.

Where have you gone, John Hancock? Your spirit still lingers with some, but it’s clear that, for these signatories, that torch has gone out.