Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced last week that ERS and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture would be relocated by the end of 2019. | Getty 'A complete shock': Economists stunned by USDA's decision to move economic research arm

Staff members at USDA’s Economic Research Service were blindsided by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue’s decision to move the agency out of Washington, and agricultural economists are concerned the department's economic research arm could be weakened by the changes.

When Perdue announced last week that ERS and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture would be relocated by the end of 2019 and that ERS also would be realigned with the Office of the Chief Economist, he cited anticipated cost savings, the ability to provide better customer service by operating closer to USDA's constituents, and the opportunity to better attract and retain staff by sparing them from the high cost of living inside the Beltway.


Those goals, however, were questioned by many rank-and-file economists at ERS, multiple sources within the agency said, in part because staff was not informed of the plan until shortly before USDA fired off a press release to the public.

“That was a complete shock to staff when that email came out last Thursday,” said Laurian Unnevehr, a former director of ERS' Food Economics Division.

The news was particularly hard on officials with families who have settled in the Washington area, despite USDA's assurances that staffers will be offered relocation assistance and the same base pay they were earning while in Washington. The department's announcement also said every ERS and NIFA employee will have the opportunity to continue working for the agencies, but most will have to relocate once new locations for the agencies are chosen. USDA has said the agencies may be co-located or located separately.

Beyond the lack of advance notice, USDA workers and the legions of economists and researchers throughout the industry who rely on ERS reports and data are worried the move could lower ERS' profile within USDA and make it more susceptible to political influence.

“A lot of people feel strongly that the rationale given doesn’t make sense and doesn’t have much evidence to support it,” said an ERS employee who was granted anonymity to discuss the situation frankly.

Since taking office, Perdue has made a series of moves to reorganize USDA and improve customer service. Tim Murtaugh, USDA's communications director, defended the department’s latest reorganizational moves by pointing to last week's announcement.

“The intent is to strengthen the department and make it more accessible to stakeholders, while saving taxpayer dollars in the process,” Murtaugh said. “How many employees decide to make the move remains to be seen.”

Murtaugh pointed out that USDA employees were notified of the decision before the press was alerted. An emailed notice to staff appears to have been sent about an hour before a media release was disseminated. Murtaugh added that USDA leaders also held a town hall-style meeting with employees on Tuesday afternoon.

Another ERS insider granted anonymity to discuss the agency's internal workings emphasized that the lack of discussion with staff about relocating and reorganizing ERS in advance of the announcement has caused morale to take a hit.

“It appeared to be news to the highest levels of ERS,” the source said of the announcement. “It came completely out of the blue.”

A shakeup at the top of ERS was set in motion just before Thursday's announcement: Mary Bohman, formerly the agency administrator, was reassigned to the department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, where she will fill a vacancy for the post of associate administrator for economics, USDA confirmed to POLITICO on Monday.

The USDA spokesperson explained that Bohman’s move to APHIS, which is responsible for leading USDA's efforts to protect American agriculture from pests and diseases, was not out of the ordinary because she’s part of the Senior Executive Service, a group of highly paid career staff that receive special leadership training.

"As you know, part of the purpose of the SES is to allow senior leaders to apply their leadership and management expertise across departments and the entire federal government,” the spokesperson said in an email to POLITICO.

Within ERS, the abruptness of the leadership change coupled with Perdue's surprise announcement has fueled worries that the agency's work was no longer viewed as a high priority.

“She was very popular, so this is devastating news,” another ERS staffer who was given anonymity to discuss the shakeup said of Bohman.

While many ERS employees are now mulling whether to look for new jobs outside of USDA, the department is moving to advance the relocation plan. The department announced Tuesday that over the next 30 days, it would be accepting “expressions of interest” and public comment on potential relocation sites and the relocation process.

The department wants to hear from “state and local governments, industry, academia, interested parties and organizations for potential locations that would accommodate the construction and/or lease and operation of a NIFA and/or ERS headquarters facility," according to the notice, which is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Wednesday.

A new location for NIFA would require about 90,000 square feet to house 360 employees, and a future headquarters for ERS would need up to 70,000 square feet for 260 employees, according to USDA.

The department’s criteria for new locations or a joint headquarters include proximity to an airport, commuting options for employees, technology infrastructure, capital and operating costs, community and quality of life issues, and workforce considerations.

ERS officials questioned whether USDA had analyzed the costs and benefits of such a move to figure out how many years it would take to save taxpayer money. Moving the agencies outside of Washington, D.C., would likely allow USDA to spend less on real estate and salaries over the long term, but moving an entire agency is a costly endeavor, they noted. There also would likely be a fair amount of employee travel to and from Washington.

Still, several employees who spoke to POLITICO on the condition of anonymity were skeptical of the department's explanation for the planned moves.

“This all seems like just a way to get people to quit,” said one official.

USDA's announcement said the department is seeking authority to offer voluntary early retirement and buy-outs to staffers who decide not to relocate.

It was not lost on ERS staff that President Donald Trump’s last budget proposed a 50 percent cut to the agency. Though that recommendation was ignored by Congress, it sent a message to staff that “the administration doesn’t care,” as another person within the agency phrased it.

The day before USDA’s announcement, the 2018 Agricultural & Applied Economics Association was wrapping up a three-day meeting that drew almost 1,500 people employed in agriculture and applied economics fields spanning academia, government agencies, NGOs and the private sector.

Jayson Lusk, who heads Purdue University's agricultural economics department and who attended the event, said that while the relocation was “a real kick in the pants” for ERS employees, the reorganization could have both pros and cons in the long term.

For example, Lusk said, one potential benefit of moving ERS from the department's research, education and economics mission area to the Office of the Secretary — thereby aligning it with the Office of the Chief Economist — is that ERS could have a greater role in shaping policy. But at the same time, he said, research into long-term trends in agricultural economics that won’t have an immediate policy impact could be “pushed aside.”

Lusk added that his main concern was that funding for economic research not be slashed. “That’s the most important thing, regardless of where it happens to be relocated,” he said of ERS.

Other economists inside and outside of ERS expressed concern that greater policy influence within USDA might lead ERS to become more focused on short-term research — which is already true of the Office of the Chief Economist — instead of focusing on more long-term studies.

Another point of concern stemmed from the fact the Office of the Chief Economist is much closer to the Agriculture secretary’s office. Some worry that research could become more geared toward promoting the administration’s agenda, regardless of which party controls the White House.

“Data collection must be objective and free from political interference,” said Ricardo Salvador, senior scientist and director of the Food and Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Salvador added that having ERS researchers closer to USDA leadership could potentially create conflicts of interest. For example, he said, researchers could be put in the awkward position of producing analysis that counters the secretary's agenda or public statements.

Juli Obudzinski, deputy policy director at the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said Perdue's plan for ERS and NIFA “threatens our country’s agricultural R&D capacity, as well as future generations of American producers that those agencies support.”

“This move politicizes federal agencies responsible for impartial economic analysis," Obudzinski said, adding that it “also sets a dangerous precedent of placing increasingly more political influence within the executive branch."

This article tagged under: Agriculture