Interior Department reveals plans to lay off more than 2,000 employees
The planned RIFs are barred for a court order for now. They have been planned for months, but were first revealed Monday as part of a union lawsuit.
The Interior Department plans to eliminate more than 2,000 positions across its headquarters, agencies and bureaus throughout the country as part of a reduction-in-force that officials say is not related to the ongoing government shutdown, but happened to coincide with it.
Interior first disclosed the planned cuts Monday in a court filing as part of a union lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce the workforce during the shutdown. At least 2,050 jobs were slated to be eliminated, according to the filing, but that figure may not represent the full scope of the department’s RIF plan, because officials are only disclosing the positions that are, for now, protected by a temporary restraining order a federal judge issued and then expanded last week.
According to the documents, the RIF would involve:
- 474 employees in the Bureau of Land Management
- 12 employees in the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
- 30 employees in the Bureau of Reclamation
- 7 employees in the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement
- 143 employees in the Fish and Wildlife Service
- 272 employees in the National Park Service
- 7 employees in the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement
- 770 Interior headquarters and Interior Business Center employees
- 335 employees in the U.S. Geological Survey
In an earlier filing last week, the department said it had been planning the staff cuts for months, and until they were blocked by a restraining order, officials had planned to abolish the positions “imminently” and issue RIF notices to the staff in those roles.
“Since the current administration took office in January 2025, Interior has been taking steps to implement administration priorities, including by seeking to streamline functions and personnel as appropriate to promote efficiency,” wrote Rachel Borra, Interior’s chief human capital officer. “Among those streamlining efforts, Interior has been working on potential RIF plans since early this year. These planning efforts were begun long before the current lapse in appropriations and had nothing to do with the lapse in appropriations.”
In that Oct. 17 filing, in a lawsuit brought by the American Federation of Government Employees and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Interior revealed that it planned to make workforce cuts across 68 competitive areas throughout its workforce.
However, on Monday, it disclosed broader reductions across 89 competitive areas after Judge Susan Illston expanded her restraining order to also protect federal programs with employees represented by the National Federation of Federal Employees, the Service Employees International Union, and the National Association of Government Employees. The numbers provided Monday only reflect positions protected by the restraining order, not necessarily the full scope of the planned layoffs.
At the bureau level, the wide-ranging cuts primarily impact Interior’s field offices, including, for example, large cuts at the Bureau of Land Management’s offices in Oregon, Washington, Utah, California, Idaho, Arizona and Colorado.
And according to a tally assembled by the Center for Western Priorities, an advocacy group, the plan would mean significant cuts to the National Park Service at the regional level, eliminating, for instance, 31% of positions in the Southeast region, 29% in the Pacific region, and 28% in the Northeast region.
“This plan would eviscerate the core science that every American depends on. USGS research underpins everything from American energy to insurance to transportation. The cuts that Secretary Burgum envisions would devastate scientific research across the Rocky Mountains, Great Plains, and Great Lakes,” Jennifer Rokala, the group’s executive director, said in a statement. “These layoffs, if they come to fruition, would also devastate the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management, getting rid of the planning, construction, and regional offices that make our parks and public lands the envy of the world.”
But the planned headquarters and business operations cuts were also substantial, including 133 positions in the department’s contracting office, 140 positions in the Interior Business Center, and 303 in information technology operations.
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