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A federal judge in California has temporarily paused President Trump's plan to cut more than 2,000 jobs from the Department of Interior. Unions representing federal workers say the cuts are illegal during a government shutdown. NPR's Kirk Siegler reports from Boise, Idaho.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: A temporary restraining order is putting these RIFs, or reductions in force, on hold for now. Unions and former federal agency directors say they'll be devastating for managing public lands, and fewer agency staff also means Trump's agenda to boost logging and drilling will be slowed. Steve Ellis is a retired deputy director of the Bureau of Land Management, which has a budget of about $1 billion but often brings in six times that with oil and gas royalties.
STEVE ELLIS: If it was me, I wouldn't want to cut a single person from an agency that brought in money like that to the federal Treasury.
SIEGLER: Court documents show the Trump administration wants to cut nearly 500 BLM workers, from the oil fields of Utah to Oregon timber country. More than 300 U.S. Geological Survey positions would be eliminated, including scores of field staff in the Great Lakes and Fort Collins, Colorado, science centers. The National Park Service has already lost a quarter of its staff from DOGE cuts earlier this year, and now Trump is trying to cut nearly 300 more jobs, mostly in regional offices. Their positions, like archaeologists or botanists, are shared by smaller national parks. Steve Ellis, who spent most of his career as a federal land manager in rural Oregon and Idaho, says the job losses, if they go through, would hit hardest in small towns.
ELLIS: These aren't faceless bureaucrats, and they shouldn't be painted as such. These people are key in these rural communities. They're part of these communities, and they're important to, you know, the sound management of America's treasured landscapes.
SIEGLER: In a statement to NPR, the Department of Interior says these RIFs were being planned well before the government shutdown - part of the administration's broader effort to make the federal bureaucracy more efficient.
Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Boise. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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