Chellie Pingree: “I think we have further to go before the implementation of what we are hoping will happen, happens.”

When a federal facility reaches the point where its very presence undermines the public confidence and leaves residents feeling less safe, the federal government has a responsibility to reconsider if that facility belongs there at all.

We, therefore, ask you to withdraw OPM and MSPB’s proposed rule, 'Promoting Employee Accountability,' and consider alternatives that preserve federal workers’ longstanding civil service protections.

Moreover, as Members of Congress who represent nearly eight thousand civilian workers at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, we are concerned about the proposed rule’s impact on workers essential to our national security.

Any time I hear one of my colleagues across the aisle say we don't need the EPA or that the actions of the EPA are extortion or retaliatory, I don't know about the specific actions that he is talking about today, but I do know, as someone…