E&E NEWS PM | Mandy Gunasekara, who served as EPA chief of staff during the Trump administration, is seeking a “full list” of participants in a group of EPA alumni, she posted Tuesday on the social media website X.

Her comments came in response to a story published by POLITICO's E&E News on Monday about the Environmental Protection Network, an organization of EPA alumni that formed in 2017 due to concerns about the Trump administration’s agenda for the agency.

The alumni group is preparing to challenge former President Donald Trump again if he retakes the White House next year.

Gunasekara linked to that story Tuesday, writing, “Could someone get me a full list of all the folks in this group? Just asking for a friend.”

She elaborated Tuesday in a text, “It would be helpful for any appointees to know who all is building a ‘resistance’ to complicate potential policy changes before even walking in the door. Given the group’s media engagement, they don’t strike me as shy.”

Gunasekara authored the section about EPA for Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for the next Republican president that was organized by the Heritage Foundation. That road map envisions a dramatic overhaul of the agency, including scaling back its size and scope.

Trump has sought to distance himself from Project 2025. But he and his allies have pushed efforts to make it easier to fire civil servants, citing instances of pushback that Trump administration officials faced when they were in office.

Jeremy Symons, a senior adviser at the network and a former EPA official, replied to Gunasekara’s X post on Tuesday.

“Sadly, bullying is a required element of the EPA demolition Olympics as former Trump staff seek a new job,” Symons wrote. He added, “P.S. You can't censor/fire alumni.”

There’s a history of EPA staff worrying about lists compiled by political appointees.

In 1983, during the Reagan administration, congressional Democrats released what was called a “hit list” of EPA staffers that they had received from an anonymous tipster, which noted 90 scientists on EPA boards and included "cynical comments on their competence and ideological outlook," Science reported then.

The list included descriptions like "clean air extremist," "reported to be liberal and environmentalist," "get him out, horrible" and "very good, keep."

EPA official Louis Cordia was accused at the time of having compiled that and other political EPA documents.

Cordia had worked at the Heritage Foundation and on the Reagan administration’s EPA transition team before being hired to work in the agency’s office of federal activities, United Press International reported. Cordia resigned after he was asked to do so by EPA’s then-acting administrator. He said he hadn’t compiled hit lists of EPA employees.