The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Jamie L. Whitten Federal Building in Washington, D.C., pictured on Dec. 18, 2017.  (USDA photo by Preston Keres)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to slash its presence in the Washington, D.C., area by sending employees to five regional hubs, Secretary Brooke Rollins said Thursday.

The department wants to reduce its workforce in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia from 4,600 to less than 2,000 and add workers to regional offices in Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City, Missouri; Indianapolis; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Salt Lake City.

The department will also maintain administrative support locations in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Minneapolis and agency service centers in St. Louis; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Missoula, Montana, according to a memorandum signed by Rollins.

The effort, which the memo said is expected to take years, will move the USDA geographically closer to its constituents of farmers, ranchers and foresters, Rollins said in a press release.

“American agriculture feeds, clothes, and fuels this nation and the world, and it is long past time the Department better serve the great and patriotic farmers, ranchers, and producers we are mandated to support,” Rollins said.

“President Trump was elected to make real change in Washington, and we are doing just that by moving our key services outside the beltway and into great American cities across the country. We will do so through a transparent and common-sense process that preserves USDA’s critical health and public safety services the American public relies on.”

U.S. Sen. Todd Young, an Indiana Republican, called the announcement “very exciting news for Hoosiers.”

“Great to see these services move outside of DC and into places like Indiana that feed our nation,” he wrote on X.

Top Ag Democrat critical

U.S. Rep. Angie Craig, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, slammed the plan, saying it would diminish the department’s workforce and that Rollins should have consulted with Congress first before putting it in place.

The move by President Donald Trump’s first administration to move USDA’s Economic Research Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture out of Washington, D.C., resulted in a “brain drain” in the agencies, as 75% of affected employees quit, Craig said.

“To expect different results for the rest of USDA is foolish and naive,” she said Thursday. “Sadly, farmers will pay the price through a reduction in the quality and quantity of service they already receive from the department.

She called on the committee’s chairman, Pennsylvania Republican Glenn “G.T.” Thompson, to hold a hearing on the issue.

“That the Administration did not consult with Congress on a planned reorganization of this magnitude is unacceptable,” Craig added. “I call on Chairman Thompson to hold a hearing on this issue as soon as possible to get answers. We need to hear from affected stakeholders and know what data and analysis USDA decisionmakers used to plan this reorganization.”

Pay rates

The USDA release also appealed to the plan’s cost efficiencies. By moving workers out of the expensive Washington, D.C. area, the department would avoid the extra pay workers in the region are entitled to, the department said.

Federal workers are eligible for increased pay based on the cost of living in the city in which they’re employed.

Washington has among the highest rates, boosting pay for workers in that region by 33%. Other than Fort Collins, whose workers also earn more than 30% more than their base pay, the other hub cities range from 17% in Salt Lake City to 22% in Raleigh, according to the release.

The plan includes vacating several D.C.-area office buildings that are overdue for large maintenance projects, the department said.

The department plans to retain its presence at the Jamie L. Whitten Federal Building and Yates Building, both in D.C., and the National Agricultural Library in Beltsville, Maryland.

It will vacate the South Building in D.C., Braddock Place in Alexandria, Virginia, and Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland. The George Washington Carver Center in Beltsville will serve as an additional office location during the reorganization, but will also be sold or transferred once the reorganization is complete, the memo said.

Each of USDA’s mission areas will still have a presence in the nation’s capital, according to the release.

But the plan includes consolidating several functions into regional offices in an effort to “eliminate management layers and bureaucracy,” according to the memo.

Forest Service

The U.S. Forest Service, a key USDA agency, will phase out its nine regional offices primarily into a single location in Fort Collins. The agency will retain a small state office in Alaska and an Eastern office in Athens, Georgia, according to the memo.

The Agriculture Research Service will also consolidate from 12 offices to the five regional hubs.

And a series of support functions would be centralized, according to the memo. 

A summer day on Golden Trout Lake in the Salmon-Challis National Forest, in east-central Idaho. (USDA Forest Service photo)

Members of the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee differed along party lines at a Thursday hearing about how the U.S. Forest Service should partner with states and how the federal wildfire response should be organized.

Senators of both parties emphasized the importance of working  with state forest managers. But while Republicans praised the efforts of Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz, a former state forest administrator in Idaho and Montana, to reach out to state governments, Democrats noted that President Donald Trump’s budget request for fiscal 2026 proposed eliminating a key program for state and tribal partnerships.

Democrats on the panel also raised a series of questions about the still-unfinished Forest Service budget request as the next fiscal year approaches in less than three months.

Schultz told the senators the budget proposal was not yet final, but confirmed the agency was telling states to prepare for zero dollars in discretionary spending for the State, Private, and Tribal Forestry program in fiscal 2026.

The program received more than $300 million in discretionary funding in fiscal 2024, plus another roughly $300 million in supplemental funding.

The Trump budget request does include $300 million for supplemental funds to the program that can be used for disaster relief.

Impact of ‘big, beautiful’ law

Ranking Democrat Martin Heinrich of New Mexico noted states are facing tighter budgets after passage of Republicans’ “big, beautiful” budget reconciliation law that includes a host of policy tweaks meant to reduce federal safety net spending while extending tax cuts for high earners.

Under the law, states will be required to pay billions more per year to cover a greater share of major federal-state partnership programs for food assistance and health coverage.

“States need that funding,” Heinrich said of the forestry program. “That is an example of a successful partnership. If we don’t have that funding, that’s not shared responsibility, that’s abdicating our federal responsibility… at a time when (state) budgets are being decimated by Medicaid cuts thanks to the big, whatever bill.”

Schultz said the state foresters had relayed similar concerns, which the administration was considering as it finalized the budget request.

Chairman Mike Lee of Utah said the Forest Service under Schultz had given states greater flexibility to set their own forest management policies.

“I want to thank you, Chief, for giving the states more and more authority, more involvement and more of an ability to set a course for the proper management of these lands,” he said. “I know that Utah is really looking forward to working with you to expand these partnerships and I know my state is not alone in that.”

Funding versus dialogue

Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California also blasted the administration for cutting the state forestry spending.

“Every state that I’m aware of is having a tougher budget picture to face,” he told Schultz. “The threat of fires is real. The threat of fires is growing. How does it make sense for the federal government to zero out these programs?”

Schultz answered that the agency would continue “partnering with the states in dialogue and discussion.”

“But you’re zeroing out their resources,” Padilla said.

“That’s correct,” Schultz said. “It’s sharing that responsibility and pushing it to the states.”

Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper, a former governor and Denver mayor, said the Trump budget request more broadly called for shifting more funding responsibilities to state and local governments.

“I see again and again, throughout all the budgets we’re seeing, is more costs shifted from the federal government to states and local areas that are going through their own budget struggles right now,” he said.

Montana Republican Steve Daines defended the idea of greater state responsibility, saying he had found the Gem State’s approach to land management more effective than the federal government’s.

“If you take a look at the landscapes across Montana and look at federal lands versus state lands, I can tell you the state’s doing a much, much better job in terms of stewardship of public lands than the federal government,” Daines said.

New firefighting service

Schultz said several times the administration had not yet finalized a plan to shift federal firefighting authorities to the Interior Department. The responsibility is currently split between the Forest Service, which is under the Department of Agriculture, and various Interior agencies, primarily the Bureau of Land Management.

Heinrich, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, raised concerns about the lack of a plan.

Heinrich said he was open-minded about the reorganization effort but was concerned that Congress had not yet seen a blueprint.

“I think there are many of us who are more concerned about the adequacy of that plan and would like to see that plan before we start making budgetary decisions about whether it’s a good idea or not,” he said. “I am very open to different ways of organizing how we fight fires on our national forests and our public lands. But I want to see the plan.”

Wyden raised opposition to the idea more broadly, saying the Forest Service should remain involved in firefighting.

“Nobody in my home state… has told me, in effect, ‘Ron we gotta have the Forest Service less involved in fighting fires,’” Wyden said. “But that is the net effect of your organizational plan.”

Schultz said the proposed reorganization would not cut any federal firefighting resources, but move the federal agency responsible for overseeing the issue. The administration would not put the reorganization in place this fire season, he added.

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, participates in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on May 13, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee says he will revamp his controversial proposal to require the sales of vast acres of federal lands in the West so it can be included in Senate Republicans’ sweeping tax and spending cut package.

Lee will be seeking approval for his revised plan from the Senate parliamentarian, who will decide if the provision complies with the chamber’s strict rules for the fast-track procedure Republicans are using to pass their bill. An earlier version of Lee’s plan was dropped from the measure.

Lee, a Utah Republican who chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, wrote on X on Monday night that he would alter the proposal to include only Bureau of Land Management land within 5 miles of a population center and exempt U.S. Forest Service lands altogether.

The amended version would also create “freedom zones” and protect “our farmers, ranchers, and recreational users,” Lee said.

It was not immediately clear what either point would mean and legislative text of the proposal was not publicly available Tuesday. A spokesperson for the committee Lee leads did not return a message seeking comment Tuesday morning.

The original version of the proposal would have mandated the sale of at least 2 million acres of BLM and Forest Service land in 11 Western states. The Senate parliamentarian ruled that language did not comply with the Senate’s rules for budget reconciliation, according to Senate Budget Committee ranking Democrat Jeff Merkley of Oregon.

Budget reconciliation is the procedure Republicans are using to pass the package that contains most of President Donald Trump’s domestic policy priorities, including extension of the 2017 tax cuts.

The process allows passage with only a simple majority in the Senate instead of the usual 60 votes but comes with strict rules that every provision has a substantial impact on the federal deficit and relates to spending and taxes.

Polarizing provision

Lee’s social media post emphasized his goal was to expand housing supply by making public lands available for new construction.

“Housing prices are crushing families and keeping young Americans from living where they grew up,” Lee wrote. “We need to change that.”

Democrats and some Republicans from the affected states — Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming — strongly opposed the measure, seeing it as a one-time sell-off of public lands used by hunters, hikers, ranchers and other users of public lands.

The provision “would have gutted America’s public lands and auctioned them off to the highest bidder, in yet another bid to benefit the wealthy,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday.

“Republicans tried to rip away hundreds of millions of acres of public land—not to help families, not to solve real problems—but to hand yet another gift to the wealthy and well-connected,” he added. “It was outrageous, it was shameless, and it would have forever changed the character of the country. Senate Democrats fought tooth and nail to keep public lands in public hands because these lands belong to everyone—not just the privileged few.”

A similar provision was removed from the House’s version of the reconciliation bill in the face of heated opposition from Western Republicans led by Montana U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke.

The former Interior secretary said last week he remained firmly opposed to the Senate version of the bill that included Lee’s proposal.

“I have said from day one I would not support a bill that sells public lands,” he wrote on X. “I am still a no on the senate reconciliation bill that sells public lands. We did our job in the House. Let’s get it finished.”

Other energy provisions stripped

Merkley reported the Senate parliamentarian also ruled several other provisions of the Energy Committee’s section of the package to be out of compliance with the “Byrd Rule,” which governs what can be included in a reconciliation bill.

Among the provisions the parliamentarian removed were items that would have waived environmental review requirements for offshore oil and gas development, mandated approval of a controversial mining road in Alaska, required annual lease sales for geothermal energy lease sales while changing how geothermal royalties are calculated and allowed natural gas exporters to pay a fee to have projects exempted from environmental requirements.

Other provisions in the committee’s reconciliation instructions were still under review Tuesday, Merkley said.

In a statement, Merkley said he would continue to lead Democrats’ campaign to strip provisions from the GOP bill.

“Democrats will not stand idly by while Republicans attempt to circumvent the rules of reconciliation in order to sell off public lands to fund tax breaks for billionaires,” he said. “We will make sure the Byrd Rule is followed and review any changes Republicans attempt to make to the bill.”