The Fish and Wildlife Service downplayed the scope of its training for employees to handle “ecogrief,” telling Congress on Thursday that no more than 150 employees took the classes and calling the sessions “small bore.”

Steven Guertin, the agency’s deputy director for policy, said they are still working to compile all the details of the training in response to a request from lawmakers.

But he said the early data suggests the training was limited.

“It was not mandatory, it’s pretty small bore,” he told the House Natural Resources Committee.

The ecogrief classes, first revealed by The Washington Times last month, were meant to help the federal employees cope with anger or a sense of loss over changes to the environment, particularly from a warming globe.

Ecogrief is part of a family of new terms to describe the distress, along with “climate grief” or “ecoanxiety.”

SEE ALSO: Sobbing spring: Feds struggle to fill seats for ‘ecogrief’ training session

The American Psychological Association in a 2020 article said “not much is known about climate grief,” and said there were no clinical studies on how to treat it.

Fish and Wildlife Service officials said they began offering their training in response to a request from employees. Training classes last four hours and are open to as many as 35 people.

Mr. Guertin said four or five have been held so far, at a total cost of about $10,000, and the numbers he gave suggested that attendance has not been great.

“Actually I think about 100, 150 may have been on a couple of webinars. there were probably 4 or 5 webinars total,” he said.

The most recent session took place in the agency’s southwest region on March 10.

Another session was planned for April 5.

SEE ALSO: U.N. doomsday report warns of ‘climate time-bomb’ unless globe ditches fossil fuels

Mr. Guertin didn’t reveal whether that session will still happen.

GOP lawmakers, in a letter earlier this month, urged the agency to put an end to the whole thing.

“We are deeply concerned that this kind of meaningless pandering is a colossal waste of taxpayer funding, does nothing to further the purpose of the USFWS and diverts important resources away from critical agency functions,” House Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman of Arkansas and colleagues wrote.

On Thursday, Republicans mocked the training.

“You understand how ridiculous this looks to normal people with 9-to-5 jobs across the country,” said Rep. Doug LaMalfa, California Republican.

Rep. Tom Tiffany, Wisconsin Republican, pointed out that the hearing also was looking at legislation that would force FWS to delist the grizzly bear as an endangered species — a move the agency has supported in the past, but which lawmakers said is now slow-walking under President Biden.

“Will this bill and hearing that we’ve introduced, will it trigger an ecogrief training for some members of your agency?” Mr. Tiffany demanded.

“No sir,” Mr. Guertin assured him.

Some agency employees have said the ecogrief training is the tip of an iceberg of woke policies infecting the agency.

They pointed to mandatory diversity training and attempts to refashion the vocabulary of employees.

One 2021 document warned against “microaggressions” and urged employees to avoid terms like “spirit animal,” saying it was stolen from Native American culture, and warned that the term “Indian” has “fallen out of favor,” with “indigenous peoples” now preferred.

The document also said using phrases like “his or her” is disrespectful because it “presents gender as an either/or” option. “Queer,” once seen as derogatory, is back in fashion with a generally positive connotation, the guidance said.

• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.