In nearly identical wording, the House and Senate Appropriations committees told the USDA to delay the relocation of two research agencies outside of the Washington area because of insufficient justification of the proposal. The bills, due for votes this week, potentially derail Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue’s plan to carry out the relocation by the end of this year.
Congressional appropriators, who control USDA spending, said they want cost estimates for the relocation as well as detailed analyses of any research benefits created by moving the Economic Research Service, which analyses food and agriculture policy, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which awards $1 billion each year in grants. The committees also called for an indefinite delay in putting the ERS under direct control of Perdue. The agency now is part of USDA’s research arm.
A USDA spokesman did not say if USDA would slow or halt its work because of the language in bills not yet approved by either chamber. “The planned move of ERS and NIFA has generated great enthusiasm around the country,” said spokesman Tim Murtaugh, pointing to 135 “expressions of interest” in becoming the new home of the agencies.
“I think the secretary should re-think his decision and wait” for Congress to decide if the relocations, involving as many as 700 employees, make sense, said Ferd Hoefner of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, which opposes the relocations.
The House was to vote on USDA funding on Wednesday as part of a package of bills to end the partial government shutdown. The Senate could vote as early as Thursday on its package. It was unclear if either would become law but the packages, the result of Senate-House negotiations, are so similar they could be the basis for successful legislation.
When Perdue announced the relocations last August, he said they would save money by locating the agencies in areas with lower wage and rental rates that are closer to the agricultural sector and are more congenial to agency workers, many of whom come from smaller and lower-cost college towns and are put off by the housing costs and long commutes of metropolitan areas.
Congress overrode Perdue on a different USDA organizational issue last month when it enacted the 2018 farm law. It re-established the post of undersecretary for rural development. Perdue eliminated the job in 2017 to make room for the congressionally mandated post of undersecretary for trade. Perdue says he has broad authority under a 2014 law to re-draw USDA’s organizational chart. He moved agencies operating crop subsidies and conservation programs under the control of single official, an undersecretary, and shifted supervision of some marketing agencies.
Lawmakers raised almost no objection to Perdue’s reorganizational campaign until the ERS and NIFA relocation was announced. Two House members from the Washington area have asked the inspector general to investigate if USDA can act on its own to relocate agencies. They say Congressional approval is needed. Perdue told senators last fall that the moves were “an internal operational decision.”
Critics say there is no compelling need to relocate the agencies, contend that USDA overstated staff turnover at ERS and NIFA, and argue the relocations would unduly separate USDA researchers from colleagues in other federal departments.
The Senate language on ERS and NIFA appears on page 4 of an explanatory statement, which is available here.
To see the Senate summary of its USDA-FDA funding proposal, click here.
The House language on ERS and NIFA appears on page 4 on an explanatory statement, which is available here.
To see the House summary of USDA-FDA funding, click here.