Congress is about to send USDA funding for the rest of the fiscal year to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. It will also send him an unambiguous, although nonbinding, message: Don’t move the Economic Research Service or the National Institute of Food and Agriculture out of Washington. On Thursday, a high-powered group of lawmakers, including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, also filed a bill to block the relocations.
Perdue says the relocations would save money on rent and salaries while making it easier to attract staff workers from college towns, where they are accustomed to short commutes and a lower cost of living.
The House bill is backed by every Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees USDA spending and by a handful of members of the House Agriculture Committee. It would require the USDA to keep the agencies in the Washington area and would block Perdue’s plan to move the ERS from the USDA’s research wing and make it part of his office. Maine Rep. Chellie Pingree called Perdue’s plan a threat to the “integrity and robustness” of the ERS and NIFA. Hoyer said the relocations would be extremely disruptive.
House and Senate negotiators included nonbinding language in a report that accompanies the government spending bill. “Insufficient information and justification make moving forward on these proposals premature at this time,” said the report. It asks the USDA for a cost estimate for the relocations and “a detailed analysis of any research benefits of their relocation.”