Hoping to dissuade Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, farm-state Democrats in Congress asked for a cost-benefit analysis that would justify moving two USDA research agencies out of Washington. Two senior Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee ridiculed the opposition to the relocation as elitism and knee-jerk obstructionism of President Trump.
Perdue says he will announce within “days and weeks” the new homes for the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The finalists are Kansas City, Indianapolis and Raleigh, with St. Louis and Madison, Wisconsin, as backup sites.
“Anytime you make change and you move people’s cheese, there’s always anxiety,” Perdue said, according to the Raleigh News and Observer, in referring to “some concern” among ERS employees. Staff at the agency voted to unionize in response to the proposed relocation.
At full strength, the ERS and NIFA have a combined workforce of 700 people; the administration wants to halve the ERS workforce. The ERS analyzes food, natural resources, rural development and agricultural issues, including USDA programs. The NIFA awards more than $1 billion a year in competitive research grants. Critics say a relocation will drive away experienced workers, unnecessarily disrupt work and weaken collaboration with scientists in other federal agencies. Perdue counters that it would save money on salaries, make it easier to recruit employees and put the agencies closer to “stakeholders.”
“We really need the agencies to be here [in Washington] to be very nimble,” said House Agriculture subcommittee chairwoman Stacey Plaskett, of the Virgin Islands, at the end of a hearing on the relocation. “We’re trying to create a record [that would] cause the secretary to respond favorably.” So far, USDA has not shown how its research would be improved by moving most of the agencies’ workers out of Washington, she said. “Not only were stakeholders entirely cut out of this process, they were blindsided by the announcement from USDA last August.”
Rep. Mike Conaway, the Republican leader on the House Agriculture Committee, blasted the “elitist notion that all wisdom and knowledge stem from Washington.” He joined Rep. Neal Dunn, the top Republican on Plaskett’s subcommittee, in saying lawmakers were wasting their time in worrying about agency locations. “I do not understand the obsession with the secretary’s decision,” said Dunn, of Florida.
Meanwhile, Democratic Sens. Tom Carper, Debbie Stabenow and Mike Peters asked Perdue and the chief of the General Services Administration, the landlord for the federal government, to explain why USDA hired a consulting company on its own to pick a new home for ERS and NIFA. In a letter, they asked for a cost-benefit analysis of the relocation and “a description of any ways that the relocation will impact the ability of USDA to achieve its research mission.”
The letter cited the GSA as identifying Indianapolis and Raleigh as finalists. The USDA repeatedly has listed “multiple sites” in Indiana and Research Triangle Park in the Raleigh-Durham area, as well as in the Kansas City area.
On Tuesday, the House Appropriations Committee approved a $15- billion USDA-FDA funding bill that would bar USDA from spending money during fiscal 2020 to move the ERS and NIFA.
Scientific groups and former USDA research chiefs oppose the proposed relocations. The American Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, a perennial USDA research partner, has said it feared relocation would damage NIFA’s effectiveness.
To watch a video of the House Agriculture subcommittee hearing, click here.