The Economic Research Service, the USDA’s self-described “honest broker of economic information,” is being placed under the control of the agency’s top political appointee, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. In a reorganizational move announced on Thursday, Perdue said he was “realigning” the ERS, now part of the USDA’s research wing, into his chief economist’s office, part of Perdue’s executive division.
The new alignment raises the risk of politicizing economic research, said a farm lobbyist. But John Schnittker, one of the USDA officials who created the agency during the Kennedy administration, said the motivation was “probably not political, just the usual misplaced trust” in reorganizations as a bureaucratic cure-all. The ERS originally operated under the direction of the USDA’s chief economist but for decades has been part of the research division.
Along with announcing the ERS move into the USDA’s Office of the Secretary, Perdue said that most of the nearly 700 employees of the ERS and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which awards research grants, will move out of the Washington area to yet-to-be-named locations. The relocation should be complete by the end of 2019, said the USDA. Severance packages may be offered to workers who do not want to move.
“These changes are more steps down the path to better service to our customers,” said Perdue in a statement. “None of this reflects on the jobs being done by our ERS or NIFA employees.” The USDA said the ERS and the Office of the Chief Economist “have similar missions,” so the renewed linkage makes sense. “ERS studies and anticipates trends and emerging issues while OCE advises the secretary and Congress on the economic implications of policies and programs.”
Former USDA chief economist Joe Glauber said, “It makes sense for ERS to be under the chief economist but makes no sense to move them out of D.C. All that means is that they are sure to lose a lot of valuable staff.”
As part of its proposed fiscal 2019 budget, the Trump administration recommended cutting ERS funding in half and having the agency “focus on core data analysis related to agricultural production.” Its portfolio now covers the food and agriculture system, ranging from food safety and food prices to the environment, trade, and foreign agriculture. In a 2011 video marking its 50th anniversary, the service said it strives for objective and unbiased research and is an “honest broker of economic information.
In a news release, the USDA said relocating the ERS and NIFA would bring “significant savings on employment costs and rent” as well as making it easier to recruit farm-state researchers wary of the high cost of living in the Washington area. A USDA spokesman was not immediately available to say how much employee turnover the relocation was expected to create.
About 330 people work for the ERS and 345 work at NIFA, which distributes $1.3 billion in research money annually.
The realignment broadens Perdue’s powers. When he created the post of undersecretary for trade in May 2017, he took over the direction of the USDA’s rural economic development programs. Formerly, they were run by an undersecretary.