EPA division renamed Gulf of America; lease canceled in Gulfport, DOGE says. What’s next?
The Environmental Protection Agency’s Gulfport-based office has been rebranded from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America Division, but it might not be around much longer — at least in its current location.
The division’s lease is on 8,608 square feet of office space overlooking the Mississippi Sound on the 12th floor of the Hancock Whitney Bank building downtown. The federal Department of Government Efficiency has listed the lease as one of almost 800 being terminated nationwide.
DOGE lists the annual cost of the Gulfport lease at $198,250, saying cancellation would save $82,604.
The website doesn’t offer any further information. The federal General Services Administration, which manages government buildings and leases, would not answer questions about the lease, such as when it expires. Instead, a spokesperson for the GSA emailed a general statement that said:
“GSA is reviewing all options to optimize our footprint and building utilization. A component of our space consolidation plan will be the termination of many soft term leases.
“To the extent these terminations affect public facing facilities and/or existing tenants, we are working with our agency partners to secure suitable alternative space. In many cases this will allow us to increase space utilization and obtain improved terms.”
EPA Gulf office awaits guidance
Communications employees at the EPA’s regional office in Atlanta, which usually responds to media inquiries, did not reply to a Sun Herald email posing questions about the lease.
Soft-term leases are those the GSA can terminate early without penalty after a firm lease period that is typically five to 10 years, a GSA leasing document explains.
The EPA’s Gulf division, founded in 1988, has worked on water quality, habitat restoration, coastal storm preparedness and recovery in the face of climate change, and environmental education. The Gulf watershed covers 5 million acres and is an essential habitat for many fish and wildlife species.
President Donald Trump’s EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin recently announced a major shift in focus, saying he was making “the largest deregulatory announcement in U.S. history.” The EPA, he said, plans to reconsider “suffocating rules that restrict nearly every sector of our economy.”
How the mission change will affect the Gulf division remains to be seen.
The Gulfport office takes up most of the space on the bank’s 12th floor. It features a conference room that overlooks the state port and Mississippi Sound. The lobby was dark on Thursday but Marc Wyatt, the Gulf division director, stepped into the hallway to talk with a reporter.
He said he could not comment on the division’s lease cancellation, beyond saying, “We’re awaiting further guidance.”
This story was originally published March 17, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
