EPA Union Says Agency Has Quietly Changed Reopening Criteria

The EPA’s biggest union claims the agency is quietly changing its criteria for reopening offices during the pandemic, adding a new metric that could let the it move faster from one phase to the next, under President Donald Trump’s three-step reopening plan.

The EPA denied the claim and said the American Federation of Government Employees was trying to stoke fear among its members, intensifying an already tense relationship between the two sides over the reopening plans.

In Phase 3, Environmental Protection Agency employees are expected to physically return to their offices, which are moving toward Phase 3 and are ...