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Forced by a federal judge to partially reveal plans for firing federal employees, the Trump administration on Monday said it plans to "imminently" terminate more than 2,000 employees at the Interior department. The reduction in force, or RIF, is partially blocked by a temporary restraining order in a case brought by unions that represent government employees.
The Monday filing outlines where 2,050 positions would be eliminated; the U.S. Geological Survey, the Bureau of Land Management, and the main Interior office would be especially hard hit. Regional offices with the National Park Service are also targeted for significant cuts.
“Even more alarming is that [Interior Secretary] Doug Burgum still won’t tell the American people how much more he plans to cut," said Jennifer Rokala, executive director at the Center for Western Priorities. "Today’s filing is only a portion of the pain he’s trying to inflict on our parks and public lands. We don’t know how many non-union offices and positions are also on the chopping block."
The RIF plan would eviscerate USGS regional science centers, terminating more than half of the workforce at the Great Lakes Science Center in Michigan, the Columbia Environmental Research Center in Missouri, and the Fort Collins Science Center in Colorado. Interior also plans major layoffs at NPS and BLM offices in Denver, as well as state BLM offices across the West.
Corner crossing war ends with a victory for public access
The years-long legal fight over "corner crossing" across the checkerboard of public lands in the West came to an end on Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from a Wyoming rancher who tried to block hunters from accessing public land adjacent to his ranch. The hunters were acquitted of criminal trespass in 2022, and won a civil suit brought by rancher Fred Eshelman. Eshelman took his appeals all the way to the Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case without comment.
The decision means that corner crossing is now legal on federal land in states covered by Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals: Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming.
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