A U.S. federal judge has temporarily barred the Department of Agriculture from closing Forest Service offices and relocating its employees, halting plans to move the agency’s headquarters from Washington to Salt Lake City, according to a court order dated October 13.
Judge Vince Chhabria of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued the order in a lawsuit brought by unions representing federal workers, including the American Federation of Government Employees.
The order bars USDA and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins from closing or eliminating Forest Service offices and from relocating employees, their positions or functions outside their local commuting area, including through management-directed reassignment letters and the deadlines in them.
USDA planned to close all nine Forest Service regional offices and shift many of their functions to 15 state offices and a network of operational service centers. It also planned to close 23 research and development facilities and centralize research in a single organization in Fort Collins, Colorado.
The Forest Service manages 193 million acres of federal land across 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. According to the plaintiffs, about 6,500 Forest Service employees received letters saying they might be affected; USDA estimated as of September 14 that at most 250 would be relocated outside their local commuting area.
The order also covers the Agricultural Research Service, including the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, and seven other USDA units, among them Rural Development, the Foreign Agricultural Service and the Farm Production and Conservation mission area.
The judge found that USDA was almost certainly reprogramming funds to shut offices and relocate staff. Appropriations laws bar the department from reprogramming money for reorganization without approval from the House and Senate Appropriations Committees.
The order is a stay under the Administrative Procedure Act that applies while the case is pending. It does not cover moves within the Washington area, reassignments of employees who applied for and accepted unrelated posted jobs, or employees who started at new duty stations before the court’s first administrative stay on September 14.
USDA must notify affected employees and post the order on its reorganization website within two business days, and file a declaration of compliance within seven business days.