The Interior Department is forcing key staff responsible for environmental reviews to move west as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the number of federal workers based in Washington, two people familiar with the plans told POLITICO.
The move is the latest by the Trump administration to eliminate environmental positions from Washington, D.C. and comes after the Department of Agriculture’s decision to transfer researchers whose jobs included studying climate change to a new headquarters in Kansas City.
As part of the ongoing reorganization of the Interior Department, half of the Bureau of Land Management’s national environmental review team would be scattered to states across the West, a move that could slow or undermine the approval of permits for oil and gas and renewable energy project developments as well as construction of recreational paths, according to the people.
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The jobs of six of the 12 BLM team members in Washington that coordinate the analysis into whether projects comply with the National Environmental Policy Act are being moved to Alaska, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Montana and Utah, according to a source familiar with the plan. Two will remain in D.C., including the branch chief, and the remainder will be assigned to state-level environmental review jobs, according to one source with direct knowledge of the plan.
Some of the team members are expected to quit BLM rather than make the move, so Interior will have to hire and train new staffers.
“It’s basically lopping the head off the animal,” said one person in the agency who has knowledge of the plan but was not authorized to speak to the press. “There will be nobody in the D.C. office to help guide the process.”
Source: Trump administration to move environmental review staff to states
