Originally published USDA relocation plan faces more congressional backlash on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/congress/2025/08/usda-relocation-plan-faces-more-congressional-backlash/ at Federal News Network
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House Democrats are putting more pressure on the Department of Agriculture, urging the agency to turn over its internal planning documents as it prepares for a major relocation effort.
In an Aug. 7 letter to USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, Democratic lawmakers raised alarms about what they described as a lack of transparency and communication to Congress over the agency’s plans to relocate about 2,500 federal employees from Washington, D.C., to multiple locations across the country.
“We are deeply concerned that this relocation, like many other reorganization efforts attempted by this administration, is being implemented without appropriate study of the costs and benefits to USDA or the American people,” the lawmakers wrote.
The lawmakers argued that absent proper planning, USDA’s relocation would cause an “upheaval” in the agency’s workforce and lead to a failure to deliver on the agency’s mission. They warned that without conducting more rigorous analysis, consulting with stakeholders and planning ahead, the relocations would mirror what happened at USDA on a much smaller scale in 2019 during Trump’s first term.
The prior relocations of USDA’s Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture to Kansas City, Missouri, led to staff attrition, a loss of institutional knowledge and worsened productivity at both agencies, according to multiple reports from the Government Accountability Office.
“Given the results of USDA’s prior relocation efforts, USDA has clearly failed to learn the lessons it should have from the disastrous 2019 reorganization,” the Democrats wrote. “Our nation’s farmers, ranchers, and rural communities cannot afford to wait years for critical services from USDA, nor can they afford a degradation of USDA expertise.”
Democrats on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, as well as several representatives from Maryland and Virginia, signed the letter to Rollins on Thursday. USDA did not immediately respond to Federal News Network’s request for comment on the letter.
The Democrats urged USDA to turn over all documents and communications related to the relocation plans. They gave a deadline of Aug. 21 for the agency to explain how it prepared for the relocation and detail any cost-benefit analysis that occurred prior to announcing its plans.
Due to USDA’s “critical role” in the U.S. agriculture and food systems, the lawmakers said, “it is urgent that Congress understand not only the details of USDA’s planned reorganization but also the goals and analysis underpinning those plans.”
The lawmakers’ concerns come after USDA announced last month that it would relocate more than half of its employees in the national capital region to five hubs across the country: Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis, Indiana; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City, Utah.
In a July 30 hearing with the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, USDA Deputy Secretary Stephen Alexander Vaden said the “prohibitive” cost of living in the D.C. area makes it hard to keep employees, and that the reorganization plan will allow USDA to recruit the next generation of its workforce.
Vaden also argued that criticism of the reorganization plan was overblown, given that about 90% of USDA employees already work outside of the D.C. area.
The relocation plans underway at USDA are much broader than those that occurred in 2019. During the hearing last month, Vaden said the agency had “learned some lessons” since then — and that the agency is gathering feedback from lawmakers on the plan.
But in their Aug. 7 letter, House Democrats pointed to multiple gaps in Vaden’s testimony — notably, they said he was unable to estimate how many USDA employees would leave the agency as a result of the relocations.
Already, USDA is on track to shed more than 15,000 employees later this year, after many opted into the deferred resignation program and accepted early retirement offers.
Vaden told lawmakers he doesn’t expect the upcoming relocations will lead to significantly more employees leaving the agency, but added, “whether every employee will voluntarily decide to come with us, I don’t know.”
USDA said no more than 2,000 employees of the 4,600 currently working in the national capital region will remain in the D.C. area following the relocations. As part of the relocation process, the agency plans to close four D.C. buildings and return them to the General Services Administration.
USDA’s relocation effort comes after the White House directed agencies to conduct reorganization and reduction-in-force plans this year. Those plans should include “any proposed relocations of agency bureaus and offices from Washington, D.C., and the national capital region to less-costly parts of the country,” Trump administration officials wrote in a Feb. 26 memo to agencies.
During his reelection campaign, President Donald Trump vowed to move up to 100,000 federal employees out of D.C. and relocate them “to places filled with patriots who love America.”
USDA’s plans also come after Trump in April rescinded two executive orders that had encouraged agencies to prioritize urban areas and historic properties in decisions on federal buildings. Trump administration officials said the removal of the two orders would give agencies more flexibility in where they decide to locate their buildings.
To further push back against the Trump administration’s relocation efforts, Democratic lawmakers reintroduced the COST of Relocations Act earlier this year. The bill would require agencies to conduct and publish a detailed cost-benefit analysis before permanently relocating any offices. That analysis, according to the legislation, would have to include an assessment of real estate and staffing costs, as well as estimates of employee attrition and anticipated impacts on agency mission.
Sponsors of the bill said a rigorous analysis would “ensure that any attempt to move federal agencies is appropriately analyzed.”
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email [email protected] or reach out on Signal at drewfriedman.11
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Originally published USDA relocation plan faces more congressional backlash on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/congress/2025/08/usda-relocation-plan-faces-more-congressional-backlash/ at Federal News Network
Originally published Federal News Network
