- Unions, nonprofits and municipalities seek to stop USDA reorganization in a new lawsuit.
- The USDA’s proposed changes include moving the Forest Service headquarters to Utah.
- The suit claims purpose is not to create efficiencies but to drastically reduce the workforce.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and one of its agencies, the Forest Service, announced a large-scale reorganization.
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Part of the plan is to move the Forest Service headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City, and close nine existing regional hubs in order to open 15 state-specific offices. Most of those would be in the West where the vast majority of forest lands are held.
“Ultimately it’s about smarter government,” Forest Service chief Tom Schultz told the Deseret News in an interview after the April announcement. “What this looks like is: to be leaner, more efficient and closer to the public that we serve.”
But there are a number of entities that disagree with the proposal. A large coalition of federal employee unions, municipalities and nonprofits this month against the Trump administration seeking to block the reorganization. They allege that it is not about smart government, but a politically motivated downsizing.
“USDA’s actual goal is to radically downsize the agency’s workforce, achieving at least an agency-wide 23% overall reduction and a 31% overall reduction when considering the public safety and inspection workforce,” seeking a preliminary injunction.
“USDA intends to achieve this goal through forced relocations of agency workers because ‘USDA is anticipating that a significant number of employees will decline geographic reassignments.’”
A larger context
The new court filing is an addendum to a larger lawsuit against the Trump administration that in the aftermath of the Department of Government Efficiency’s large-scale cuts to the federal workforce.
The Supreme Court granted a stay to those executive actions by the administration or federal agencies in the spring and summer 2025 as a result of that lawsuit. The high court “expressed no view” on the relative merits of the arguments, pushing it back down to lower courts to decide.
The arguments of the two cases are similar: that any such reorganization requires congressional approval.
“Congress, not the president, still determines the mission and functions of federal agencies created by statute, and Congress has repeatedly drawn the line to say no to workforce reductions,” Corinne Johnson, a partner at Altshuler Berzon, one of the firms representing the plaintiffs in the new lawsuit, said in a statement.
“The actions of this administration to reorganize USDA are a ruse for forcing employees to quit because they work on programs — like feeding low-income women and children, protecting our forests, or scientific research — that this administration opposes for political reasons. That is unlawful.”
Moving the Forest Service to Utah
Salt Lake City is the center of the West, Schultz said earlier. “We just see that as a great fit for the Forest Service, for the USDA and for the state of Utah,” he said.
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A date for the move has not been disclosed.
The lawsuit’s memorandum claims that the Forest Service is already “severely understaffed” after losing 6,000 employees in 2025 as part of job reduction efforts, and that moving offices would only further deplete its workforce.
Schultz said in April, however, that “there are no layoffs.”
“There will be some directed reassignments. People will be offered new opportunities. Their job could look a little different; it could be in a different location,” he said. “But we’ve made it very clear to our employees that if they want to work in the Forest Service, we will help them to find a place that works for them and for us.”
Conflicting messages?
The lawsuit contends the intention of the reorganization is to lower head counts.
“Although USFS claims that the restructuring is not intended to force employees to quit or leave, on June 1, 2026, USDA Deputy Secretary Steve Vaden sent a letter to Congress that confirms that the purpose of the forced relocations is to reduce the agency’s workforce,” reads the court memo.
The memo explained that Vaden was “contending ‘the previous administration’ conducted ‘hiring that was unsustainable’ and so ‘the Trump administration is reorganizing the Forest Service to align its workforce size with available resources.’”
An internal USDA document from April 2025 with the lawsuit says the intention is to reduce the federal workforce.
“USDA is anticipating that a significant number of employees will decline geographic reassignments … ,” reads the document.
While the various statements appear contradictory, they are consistent with promises made by the Trump administration to reduce the federal workforce.
Still, the plaintiff’s lawyers argue that, too, runs afoul of the law.
“An agency that provides a public explanation that contradicts its own internal rationale runs afoul of the (Administrative Procedure Act’s) requirement to provide a reasoned explanation,” according to the request for an injunction. “The disjunction between USDA’s private rationale and public explanation alone renders the reorganization plan arbitrary and capricious.”
Last April, Schultz wanted to remind folks that the Forest Service is approaching the changes with “a degree of humility.”
“The intent is to better serve the public and care for the land. The land needs a lot of caring for,” he said. “And we think the closer we are to doing that, it’s going to improve the land management and the fire management function that we provide.”
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