Almost 30 senior employees based at the Interior Department's headquarters in Washington, D.C. were reassigned last year and some have formally complained it was political retaliation for their work on issues like climate change.
Almost 30 senior employees based at the Interior Department's headquarters in Washington, D.C. were reassigned last year and some have formally complained it was political retaliation for their work on issues like climate change.
But in a report out Wednesday, the Interior Department's internal watchdog that investigated the claims said it could not determine if the moves violated federal guidelines because the board that reassigned senior employees did not keep proper records documenting its decisions.
The Union of Concerned Scientists, which has been outspoken about allegations of retaliation against researchers, said in a statement that the board's conduct is indefensible.
“This goes beyond mere incompetence. It’s absolutely unacceptable for political appointees to take this action without leaving a public record or any attempt to explain why dedicated public servants are being treated this way," the group's director Andrew Rosenberg said in the statement.
The top Democrat on the committee with oversight of Interior, one of the senators who requested the investigation, called the findings "one more screw-up at taxpayer expense" at the department.
"Reassignment in this case just means it's easier for political operatives at Interior to circumvent the law," Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. said in a statement.
Cantwell and other Democrats on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee asked the inspector general to look into the reassignments.
The employees were in a category called the Senior Executive Service and can be reassigned but in this case, the inspector general found that the department did not follow all recommended procedures like detailing how the decisions were made and talking the employees about the decision before it was final.
The professional group that represents those employees said in a statement that the Department's actions "sowed seeds of distrust and suspicion" among career employees.
Senior Executive Association President Bill Valdez said in a statement that the fact that the majority of the officials believe they were reassigned because of their work on climate change or because they were close to retirement "should set off alarm bells for all taxpayers who benefit from our world-class apolitical civil service."
The inspector general's report found that the board in charge of reassigning senior employees called the Executive Resource Board, "did not document its plan or the reasons it used when selecting senior executives for reassignment."
The report wrote that the lack of documents prevented the inspector general "from making a clear determination whether or not the DOI met the legal requirements."
But a spokeswoman for the department said in a statement that the report reaffirmed that the reassignments were all above board.
"Obviously, the evaluation confirmed the Department's long-held view that the ERB has the lawful authority to reassign SES Members and has done so here," spokeswoman Heather Swift said in a statement.
Swift also said that the department has made changes recommended in the report to add more accountability to the decision-making process. A previous statement about the reassignments said that these Senior Executive Service employees are meant to be a mobile force and that those employees know they could be reassigned.