Adding to the many slings and arrows of outrageous fortune being directed at EPA administrator Stephen Johnson these days, unions representing many EPA employees have withdrawn from cooperative agreements with their appointed administrators.

The strongly-worded statement accuses Johnson and his fellow appointees of "abuses of our good nature and trust", of ignoring principles of scientific integrity when politically expedient, and of a punitive attitude towards whistleblowers that has chilled efforts to make the agency more accountable and transparent. Leading their list of specific complaints was Johnson's decision to deny California's waiver to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, which went against the recommendations of agency specialists.

The unions' withdrawal from the National Labor-Management Partnership Council is largely symbolic; the cooperative agreement, a relic of the Clinton era, was intended to help address workplace and labor issues. Regardless of its actual impact, the unions' withdrawal represents the closest thing to a vote of no confidence possible, and undermines Johnson's relationship with his agency even more.

It also underlines a crucial divide that exists within the EPA between its rank-and-file -- who by and large are committed to the task of environmental protection -- and its administrators, who are subject to the whims and needs of the politicians that appoint them. Under an administration that many perceive to be actively undermining environmental protection in general and the EPA in particular, that divide is clearly yawning ever wider. At some point, it must be asked: Is Stephen Johnson, under fire from both politicians and his own staff, his job in question after the California debacle, still capable of effectively leading the EPA?