Eliminate ORD's use of Title 42 hiring authority

Research notes

• One negative search covered the whole cluster of EPA science, appointee and advisory-body asks on pp. 436-437.
• Federal Register API: a search for “title 42” and hiring in EPA documents from 2025-01-20 returned none. The FY 2026 Congressional Justification (28,159 lines) does not contain “title 42”; nor does the CJ addendum.
• Reviewed 2026-09-06, with a negative result. Status unchanged. The open lead was “an EPA human-capital document showing whether Title 42 appointments survived the ORD reduction in force”. The one government-wide personnel listing that covers EPA — OPM’s PLUM database under the PLUM Act, current to 15 June 2026 — was read and cannot answer it. Its scope is policy and supporting positions: Presidential appointments, noncareer SES, Schedule C and career SES. Title 42 appointments under 42 U.S.C. 209 are scientific hires outside that scope and appear in it under no circumstances, so its silence about them is definitional rather than evidential.
• What the same listing does show, and what bears on the ask sideways: EPA reports zero policy and supporting positions in the Office of Research and Development, against 179 for the agency. The office has no reported senior leadership at all. That is recorded on #1165, whose ask it is; it does not tell us what happened to a pay authority, which is what this Quote names.
• So the negative stands where it did and its reach is stated: it covers the Federal Register, the FY 2026 Congressional Justification and its reorganization addendum, EPA’s published pages and OPM’s statutory appointee reporting, and it cannot reach EPA’s internal human-capital records, which are the only place a Title 42 appointment is recorded.