BREAKING: Trump "disrupts climate change research" by destroying jobs. [View all]

[Jeffersons Ghost]

USDA moving ahead with reorganization plan opponents argue would 'eviscerate' research units
Updated 6:08 AM ET, Fri May 31, 2019

(CNN) - Hundreds of professional researchers at the US Department of Agriculture are waiting to hear where outside the Washington area their jobs will be relocated -- part of a drive by Secretary Sonny Perdue to cut costs in the federal bureaucracy that many workers also see as a way to disrupt climate research and other work their bosses disagree with.

The looming changes have triggered unionization drives, with workers in charge of research grants set to vote June 11 on joining the American Federation of Government Employees, one of the major federal workers' unions, after USDA economists voted to join earlier this month.

One watchdog group opposed to the relocation says the relocation is a "back-door" way to cut staff at the Economic Research Service (ERS), which provides research and statistical analysis for lawmakers, and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), which oversees the allocation of federal funding for primarily academic research across the country.

The Trump administration has been focused on remaking the federal bureaucracy, triggering a steady outflow of career civil servants. The Environmental Protection Agency's workforce, for example, has decreased by nearly 1,200 employees in the last two years, according to federal data -- many of whom were scientists, according to records obtained by the Washington Post.
http://m.cnn.com/en/article/h_a8f4555bc59ad2a5272a4853516d1353