Court document excerpt regarding Dr. Jenkins and EPA fraud allegations

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document Jenkins v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 88-SWD-2 (ALJ July 10,1998) Page 31 of 34

completely objective" concerning

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Monsanto (TR 1555-56). He fiirther stated that a person doing listing work must have a good relationship with the industry and that he thought that would not be the case if Jenkins was working on a listing project involving Monsanto (TR 1603). Therefore, I find that the decision to not place Jenkins on any Monsanto listing projects, which was part of the reason Jenkins had no work in 1991, was based on legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons.

There were other reasons why Jenkins was assigned no duties during 1991 that were acknowledged in complainant's brief. First, three potential listing projects were ruled out because Petruska decided either that more data was not needed for the listing or that the particular waste need not be listed (TR 1560-62). Second, complainant’s participation in another dye and pigment listing was ruled out because she had once alleged the industry had made threats against her (TR 1491). Her supervisors decided this was a reason not to assign Jenkins to dye and pigment work (TR 1491). These reasons support the conclusion th?. Jenkins' "*10-work" period in 1991 emerged fi-om Petruska's legitimate concerns, rather than malicious or discriminatory intent.

5. Merits of 1991 Allegations

Jenkins final contentions are:

4/29/91: Retroactive imposition of a clause in performance standards requiring adherence to an unpublished unavailable policy on communications

10/29/91: Satisfactory rather than exceeds expectations performance evaluation based on alleged non-adherence to policy on communications.

Compl. brief at 177.

Jenkins did not receive her final performance standards for FY 1991 until April or May of 1991 (TR 737-38). When she received them a requirement had teen added stating "Agency policies concerning communicating with the public are followed" (CX 334 at 6). Petruska agreed that this clause was put into her standards after she had already revealed the criminal investigation of Monsanto to the public. Adding this criteria was not an adverse action.

By adding the criteria, Petruska was ensuring, in a formal manner, that Jenkins was notified of the communications policy and the importance of adhering to it. Jenkins claimed at the hearing that she was not familiar with the communications policy prior to April, a contention that is not credible in light of her testimony that she would regularly read through files to determine what EPA policy was on various subjects and bec^”''’? she had been involved previously with investigations. Furthermore, Petruska testified that he iMought Jenkins should have been aware of the policy and not disclosed the information to the public. However,

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because Jenkins insisted that she was not familiar with the policy, Petruska took the formal action of inserting a provision requiring her adherence to it into her performance standards. That was not an

file://A:\Dismissed.htmI 12/21/01

NYC-WTC_000140208