Environmental Protection Specialist

This position serves in the Environmental Planning and Historic Preservation (EHP) Cadre as a senior technical expert and field leader in support of disaster response and recovery operations. Ideal candidates have demonstrated experience leading EHP and providing authoritative technical guidance on environmental planning, compliance requirements, and historic-preservation considerations. For specific salary information related to your location, please review the OPM salary tables.

What will I do in this position if hired? In this Environmental Protection Specialist position, you will lead efforts to identify, avoid, minimize, and mitigate potential adverse effects on environmental and historic preservation resources.. Typical assignments include: Disseminating technical and regulatory information through briefings, documents, workshops, conferences, seminars, and/ or public hearings. Acting as a single point of contact for the Regional Environmental Officer (REO) or Deputy REO (DREO) on all EHP matters related to FEMA's regulatory compliance for the emergency or disaster declaration, or post-disaster recovery activities.

Coordinating with FEMA offices, programs, and directorates to fulfill EHP requirements. Overseeing environmental & historic preservation compliance reviews for all proposed FEMA grants (e.g. Public Assistance and Hazard Mitigation Assistance grant projects) and other FEMA-funded actions (e.g. Direct Housing activities, Mission Assignments). Initiating and successfully completing interagency consultation under various environmental laws, such as the National Historic Preservation Act and the Endangered Species Act.

What else do I need to know? At FEMA, our mission is to help people before, during and after disasters, and every employee at FEMA has a role in emergency management. Every FEMA employee has regular and recurring emergency management responsibilities, though not every position requires routine deployment to disaster sites. All positions are subject to recall around the clock for emergency management operations, which may require irregular work hours, work at locations other than the official duty station, and may include duties other than those specified in the employee's official position description.

Travel requirements in support of emergency operations may be extensive in nature (weeks to months), with little advance notice, and may require employees to relocate to emergency sites with physically austere and operationally challenging conditions. This announcement is for a position as a CORE (Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employee). CORE employees are full-time employees hired to directly support the response and recovery efforts related to disasters.

Employees are hired under the Robert T. Stafford Act and are excluded from the provisions of title 5, United States Code, governing jobs in the competitive service. They can be hired under a streamlined process instead of a competitive process. After three years of continuous service, Stafford Act employees may be granted competitive eligibility to apply for permanent full-time positions at FEMA.

All qualifications and eligibility requirements must be met by the closing date of the announcement. To qualify for this Environmental Protection Specialist position at the IC-13 level, you must possess one full year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the IC-12 level in the Federal government, which has equipped you with the skills needed to successfully perform the duties of the position. Experience may be obtained in the federal government, a state or local government, or private sector, and must demonstrate the following: Applying knowledge to ensure projects or programs comply with relevant laws (i.e., the Endangered Species Act, National Historic Preservation Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Coastal Barrier Resources Act, National Environmental Policy Act, Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act, and Executive Orders 11988 (Floodplain Management) and 11990 (Protection of Wetlands).

Supervising development of environmental compliance documentation, and agency consultations with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife, State Historic Preservation Offices, and other resource agencies. Coordinating with external stakeholders on environmental compliance issues. Please read the following important information to ensure we have everything we need to consider your application: Do not copy and paste the duties, specialized experience, or occupational assessment questionnaire from this announcement into your resume as that will not be considered a demonstration of your qualifications for this position.

Your resume serves as the basis for experience related qualification determinations, and you must highlight your most relevant and significant work experience and education (if applicable), as it relates to this job opportunity. Please use your own words, be clear, and specific when describing your work history. We cannot make assumptions regarding your experience. Are you qualifying based on your work experience? Qualifications are based on your ability to demonstrate in your resume that you possess one year of the specialized experience for this announcement at a comparable scope and responsibility.

To ensure all of the essential information is in your resume, we encourage you to use the USAJOBS online Resume Builder. If you choose to use your own resume, it must contain the following information organized by experience/position: (1) job title, (2) name of employer, (3) start and end dates of each period of employment (from MM/DD/YY to MM/DD/YY), (4) detailed description of duties performed, accomplishments, and related skills, and (5) hours worked per week (part-time employment will be prorated in crediting experience).

Federal experience/positions must also include the occupational series, grade level, and dates in which you held each grade level. Are you a current or former FEMA Reservist/Disaster Assistance Employee (DAE)? To accurately credit your experience from intermittent positions and Reservist Deployments, you must list the dates (from MM/DD/YY to MM/DD/YY) of deployments that are relevant to your qualifying experience, along with the job title and specific duties you were responsible for during each deployment.

Determining length of General or Specialized Experience is dependent on the above information. Failure to provide the above information in your resume may result in your application being found "not qualified." Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional, philanthropic, religious, spiritual, community, student, social).

Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills, and provides valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. For additional information on crediting experience and/or education, please reference the OPM General Schedule Qualification Standards