- The Department of the Interior has plans to further layoff 2,050 union employees.
- Among those are 272 National Park Service workers and nearly 500 from the BLM.
- The BLM in Utah would lose 12% of its total workforce.
The Department of the Interior has plans to fire at least an additional 2,050 employees “imminently,” it wrote in a declaration filed in federal court on Monday.
Workers from the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Geological Survey, among others, are included in the pending workforce cull.
“Since the start of the current administration, with several court-ordered pauses, the Department of the Interior has repeatedly reviewed and evaluated its current workforce and its departmental needs,” wrote a Department of the Interior spokesperson in an email to Deseret News.
“This includes examining efficiencies, reducing redundancies, as well as offering deferred retirement programs and exploring options related to reductions in force (RIFs).”
Amid the rhetoric of layoffs surrounding the government shutdown, the spokesperson — and the court filing — both make clear that those cuts are not associated.
“Any RIFs contemplated or planned by the department predate the congressional Democrats’ shutdown,” wrote the Interior Department spokesperson.
Where could jobs be lost?
This workforce reduction, however, takes aim at positions across 89 different “competitive areas,” where over 14,000 federal employees work. Those areas span the National Park Service, Bureau of Reclamation, as well as BLM offices in Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Utah.
“Within the 89 competitive areas, Interior intended to abolish 2,050 positions,” reads the declaration, signed by Rachel Borra, the chief human capital officer for the Department of the Interior.
For the shared BLM office for Oregon and Washington, there are 95 workers whose jobs are on the line. At the BLM’s national operations center in Denver, there are 87 out of 177 positions or about 47%. The Interior Department’s communications office — people who respond to journalists’ questions — would lose 129 of 443 employees.
Utah’s BLM offices have 783 employees who are responsible for managing nearly 23 million acres. That’s an area almost the size of Indiana, and averages out to more than 29,000 acres per person.
The DOI is planning on reducing that staff by 93 people, according to the court filing.
“The BLM is already chronically understaffed, under-resourced, and reeling from layoffs earlier this year,” Steve Bloch, the legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said in a statement.
“In Utah alone, the administration is proposing to fire nearly 12% of the BLM’s workforce. Those cuts will further degrade the agency’s capacity to steward public lands, ultimately diminishing visitor experiences and harming Utah’s red rock country.”
Kathleen Sgamma, principal for Multiple-Use Advocacy and a former candidate to be the BLM director in the Trump administration, reiterated that point.
“If you cut too much from BLM, then you’re starting to cut from bone,” Sgamma said.
“The Trump administration has the very clear goal to unleash American energy and BLM is a key agency for doing so. If you really want to unleash American energy, and then you cut BLM staff too much, then how are we supposed to do this?”
Why were the numbers published?
Several labor unions representing federal workers sued the Department of the Interior in California federal court for more information regarding any planned workforce reductions.
As a result, the Judge Susan Illston, based in San Francisco, ordered the agency to provide “declarations that identify any RIFs that have been or are being planned or prepared to be issued during the federal government shutdown.”
The focus of the order, however, was only for those workers that were part of collective bargaining agreements. It only required information for the federal employees who were members of, among others, the National Federation of Federal Employees, the Service Employees International Union and the National Association of Government Employees.
In the declaration, Borra stipulated that of the 14,012 workers within the 89 competitive areas under review, that 4,833 of them were part of the unions.
It’s from that number, specifically, that those 2,050 positions are being eliminated.
The Interior Department spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether or not there were any other reductions for the remaining 9,179 non-unionized positions or for the broader agency’s workforce.
Which is something that worries Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities.
“Even more alarming is that Doug Burgum still won’t tell the American people how much more he plans to cut. Today’s filing is only a portion of the pain he’s trying to inflict on our parks and public lands,” Rokala said in a statement.
“We don’t know how many non-union offices and positions are also on the chopping block.”
What else did the court filing reveal?
Based on percentages, the U.S. Geological Survey will see the greatest job reduction, with the Midcontinent Region office losing 79% of its staff, the Missouri office losing 78% and Fort Collins office losing 56%.
The USGS agency “provides science about the natural hazards that threaten lives and livelihoods ... develop(ing) new methods and tools to enable timely, relevant, and useful information about the Earth and its processes.”
“USGS research underpins everything from American energy to insurance to transportation,” Rokala said.
“The cuts that Secretary Burgum envisions would devastate scientific research across the Rocky Mountains, Great Plains and Great Lakes. These layoffs, if they come to fruition, would also devastate the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management, getting rid of the planning, construction, and regional offices that make our parks and public lands the envy of the world.”
The declaration also included eliminating 272 positions from the National Park Service, which has already seen an at least 24% reduction in its workforce since Trump’s inauguration in January.
With the National Park System, the Southeast Regional Office will lose about one-third of its staff, with 69 of 222 positions abolished. The Pacific West will lose 57 out of 198, the Northeast Region will lose 63 out of 224, with another regional support office losing 18 out of 86.
Despite those cuts, the Department of the Interior reiterated its commitment to keeping parks open by prioritizing guest-focused roles, promoting energy production initiatives and reducing regulatory burdens.
The agency also intends to preserve its firefighting, law enforcement, aviation and critical infrastructure maintenance capabilities.
Even with those core commitments, Bloch expressed concern that the scale of what was being considered was being lost — particularly in Utah.
“These are not faceless bureaucrats as the administration would like you to believe. If you live in places like Price, Moab, Richfield or Kanab, these people are a core part of the local community. Federal employees, such as those who work for the BLM, make up a large percentage of the workforce in rural Utah,” Bloch said.
“For example, government employees (including but not limited to federal employees) make up 23% of the workforce in Garfield County and 25% in Wayne County. It’s plain to see that the Trump administration couldn’t care less about the federal workforce and the benefit these public servants bring to all Americans.”