An Environmental Protection Agency lawyer and union leader has signed a dissent letter opposing President Donald Trump’s policy at the agency and has posted on social media attacking EPA Director Lee Zeldin, but appears to still be employed there.
This activity raises questions as to whether she might be a “deep state” actor, working to undermine Trump’s policies from within the administration.
Nicole Cantello serves as president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 704, the EPA’s labor union. A verified LinkedIn profile lists her as an attorney at the EPA.
Declaration of Dissent
On June 30, 2025, Cantello signed a “Declaration of Dissent” addressed to Zeldin.
“EPA employees join in solidarity with employees across the federal government in opposing this administration’s policies, including those that undermine the EPA mission of protecting human health and the environment,” the letter states. “Today, we stand together in dissent against the current administration’s focus on harmful deregulation, mischaracterization of previous EPA actions, and disregard for scientific expertise.”
This letter expresses a “deep state” attitude reflected in a poll from last year.
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An RMG Research poll found that 75% of Washington, D.C.-area federal employees who made at least $150,000 a year and who voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 would disobey a lawful Trump order if they considered it bad policy.
The letter took a hostile stance to the new administration’s policy objectives, condemning Zeldin’s exposure of “green slush funds,” accusing the EPA of ignoring science, championing “environmental justice” against the administration’s priorities, and claiming the administration created a “culture of fear” by firing federal workers. Many of these complaints trace back to ideological disagreements with the Trump agenda.
EPA Staff Names Disappear
Cantello’s signing the letter wasn’t exactly a secret. Her name appeared as No. 9 of the then-public list of signatories. The list mentioned her employment at the Chicago-based EPA Region 5, which serves Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, and 37 tribes.
She also spoke to Science Magazine about the letter.
“Having folks speak up is contagious,” Science quoted her as saying.
Yet the names disappeared from the website as Zeldin started taking action against employees who had personally stated their desire to oppose the administration’s policies.
The EPA fired at least eight employees who had signed the letter.
The declaration “contains inaccurate information designed to mislead the public about agency business,” EPA spokeswoman Molly Vaseliou said at the time. “Thankfully, this represents a small fraction of the thousands of hard-working, dedicated EPA employees who are not trying to mislead and scare the American public.”
Cantello does not appear to have been among those fired, and news outlets have quoted her since then.
In February, she told the online magazine bioGraphic that employees at the EPA are hunkering down, hoping for a new administration to reverse Trump’s policies.
“I give the EPA employees here a lot of credit,” she said. “They want to survive this. They want to live to … rebuild this agency.” She said that when political support for her preferred policies resurges, “these people could really engage in environmental protection again.”
An account on X that seems associated with Cantello has shared anti-Zeldin content. The account has reposted the activist group Moms Clean Air Force, which accuses Zeldin of “completely corrupting EPA’s mission” and calls for his resignation.
‘Resistance’ Operative
“Nicole Cantello is a prime example of a ‘resistance’ operative in our federal government who believes her politics take precedence over the will of the voters,” Houston Keene, director of the watchdog group Democracy Restored, told The Daily Signal in a statement Friday. “Her social media offers plenty of evidence of that, let alone her signing the dissent letter against Lee Zeldin and the EPA and then scrubbing her signature when it became apparent there would be consequences.”
“Cantello and her union must face serious scrutiny, especially if any of these actions were taken on official time,” Keene added.
Neither the AFGE’s national union nor Local 704 responded to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment.
The EPA declined to confirm or deny Cantello’s continued employment, but condemned bureaucrats who seek to undermine the agency’s policy from within.
“The Environmental Protection Agency has a zero-tolerance policy for career bureaucrats unlawfully undermining, sabotaging, and undercutting the administration’s agenda as voted for by the great people of this country,” an EPA spokesperson told The Daily Signal on Friday.
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