According to court documents just filed, the Department of the Interior is about to fire employees at the Bureaus of Land Management and Reclamation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, U.S Geological Survey, and from DOI’s own management team. The move comes after a federal judge and unions attempted to prevent the reductions in force last week.
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Here’s that court document from DOI:
This document is a response to a court request as part of legal action brought by trade unions, including the American Federation of Government Employees, and AFL-CIO. It only includes employees that are members of those unions, so the actual number of pending RIFs may be much larger.
A judge in the U.S District Court for Northern California issued a temporary restraining order on Friday, as part of that case. It bans federal agencies from proceeding with RIFs of employees protected by unions, which as of last year totaled about 17,000 of Interior’s 70,000-strong permanent workforce.
While that restraining order prevents these RIFs from proceeding—for now—this is the first time we’ve seen details of DOI’s plan to pursue its next round of layoffs.
Cuts at NPS are largely to staff in regional offices.
BLM will lose regional employees in Oregon, who manage 16 million acres of public land, and in Utah, where they manage 23 million acres across more than just that state. There’s also cuts at the agency’s national office in Colorado.
35 of the 142 cuts at USFWS are to the Migratory Birds Program. I’ve previously detailed the Trump administration’s war on wild birds, which could lead to mass extinction.
The Bureau of Reclamation manages western water infrastructure, like the Sun River Dam pictured above. Layoffs include a broad swath of area managers, including those responsible for maintenance at projects as important as the Hoover Dam.
Cuts at USGS appear to be part of the plan to eliminate research into the effects of climate change laid out by longtime public lands villain William Perry Pendley in Project 2025.
In response to this new, The Sierra Club states:
“The American people will ultimately pay the price for these planned layoffs at Interior. Gutting the staff who protect our public lands and wildlife is not fiscal responsibility, it’s sabotage. From national parks to wildlife refuges, staff at agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service protect and preserve our shared natural heritage. The Trump administration is deliberately hollowing out the federal agencies charged with safeguarding our environment to serve the corporate polluters who see our public lands as something to exploit, not protect.”
Top photo: BOR
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If only Congress was alive to see this. Call them anyway! Fight for our democracy and federal workers. It’s a shame that we are giving $20 billion to another country and destroying our federal workforce.
The 2050 only includes union members so the actual number is likely much larger