13. Environmental Protection Agency · Minor
Rename Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy as Deputy Chief of Staff, Regulatory Improvement
Printed page 421 13. Environmental Protection Agency
“The Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy position within the Administrator’s office should be renamed the Deputy Chief of Staff for Regulatory Improvement. This position would oversee a reorganization effort that includes the following actions:”
What has happened
- Not started
The post is still there under its old name. The Office of Personnel Management's PLUM listing of EPA's policy and supporting positions, reported by EPA and published as of 15 June 2026, records three Deputy Chiefs of Staff in the Office of the Administrator: for Management (career SES), for Program Offices and Regional Affairs (noncareer SES), and for Strategy, Policy, and Strategic Engagement (Schedule C, GS-15) — the last being the position the 2024 Plum Book carried under the same title and the one the Mandate calls the Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy. It was not renamed Deputy Chief of Staff for Regulatory Improvement; it was filled. The restructure did create an Associate Administrator for Policy and Regulatory Management, but that is a new senior post heading an office, not the renaming of a Deputy Chief of Staff, and EPA's own Administrator's-office page lists only the Chief of Staff and the Deputy Chief of Staff for Management among its leadership.
- OPM PLUM Reporting, PLUM Data (5 U.S.C. 3330f) — EPA's policy and supporting positions as reported to OPM, data as of 15 June 2026: Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategy, Policy, and Strategic Engagement, Schedule C GS-15, filled
- EPA, About the Office of the Administrator (seven offices; Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Staff for Management; no Deputy Chief of Staff for Regulatory Improvement)
- EPA FY2026 Congressional Justification addendum: Consolidations, Reorganizations, Realignments, or Eliminations — AO restructured into seven offices
Research log
What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence
Research notes
- Negative search (2026-08-27): EPA’s Office of the Administrator page (updated 2026-06-26) names a Chief of Staff and a Deputy Chief of Staff for Management, and no Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy or for Regulatory Improvement. The FY2026 Congressional Justification addendum describes the AO restructure in full and never mentions the Deputy Chief of Staff title.
- Corrected 2026-09-06, Status unchanged. The 2026-08-27 note said “the title the Mandate wanted renamed no longer appears at EPA”. That was wrong, and it mattered: it made the ask look moot when it is simply undone. EPA’s own leadership blurb lists two of the office’s people; OPM’s PLUM listing lists all sixteen of its policy and supporting positions, and the Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategy, Policy, and Strategic Engagement is among them, filled by a Schedule C appointee. The 2024 Plum Book (S. Prt. 118-27, data as of 16 July 2024) carries the identical title, so the post is unchanged in name across the window.
- The instrument that answers every “is this post political / does it still exist” question at EPA is OPM’s PLUM database, not the Plum Book: the printed 2024 Plum Book is a 16 July 2024 snapshot and cannot show current incumbency, while OPM’s PLUM data is fed by agency reporting and was published as of 15 June 2026.
- What happened instead is on the not started event as Evidence, as action next to the ask that does not satisfy it: the restructure created an Associate Administrator for Policy and Regulatory Management — a different post at a different level, and one the Mandate did not ask for.
- The reorganization that carried this restructure is #1052; the offices it eliminated are #1043 and #1047.
- Action
- other
- Object
- Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy position, EPA Office of the Administrator
- ID
- 1042