Activist group Stand Up For Science, which launched the petition, wrote on its website, “We’re honored to be chosen by the brave heroes at the EPA to host their public Declaration of Dissent here.

The Environmental Protection Agency has placed roughly 140 employees on administrative leave days after they signed a public letter expressing concern about the treatment of federal employees and the Trump administration’s regulations on climate and public health.

Five of those suspended employees were in the EPA’s Region 1 office in Boston, which oversees all of New England. Their alleged offense was a decision to sign their names to a letter of protest to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin,