Posted on 08/10/2018 3:57:53 PM PDT by markomalley
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue announced Thursday that the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) will be fully moved out of the nation’s capital by 2020, according to the USDA. A location hasn’t been picked yet.
“It’s been our goal to make USDA the most effective, efficient, and customer-focused department in the entire federal government,” Perdue said in a statement. “In our Administration, we have looked critically at the way we do business, with the ultimate goal of ensuring the best service possible for our customers, and for the taxpayers of the United States.”
“In some cases, this has meant realigning some of our offices and functions, or even relocating them, in order to make more logical sense or provide more streamlined and efficient services,” Perdue said.
As part of the reorganization, Perdue is also moving the Economic Research Service (ERS) out from under the USDA’s Research, Education, and Economics branch. The ERS will be placed back in the Office of the Chief Economist under the authority of the Office of the Secretary.
Roughly 700 USDA employees could be moved, E&E News reports.
Keeping steady workers at the ERS and NIFA has been difficult for the department, and officials are hoping that moving the agencies out of D.C. to more rural and lower-cost areas will entice employees to stay longer and serve rural Americans better.
“None of this reflects on the jobs being done by our ERS or NIFA employees,” Perdue said. “These changes are more steps down the path to better service to our customers, and will help us fulfill our informal motto to ‘Do right and feed everyone.'”
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has plans to move the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the largest land-owning agency in the federal government, out West. A specific location has not yet been picked. (RELATED: Zinke Is Shipping The Headquarters Of The Largest Land-Owning Agency Out Of DC)
BLM’s top officials are too distant from the lands and Americans they regulate, lawmaker and Trump administration officials say. The distance has caused tensions between western land owners, managers and federal officials.
Dallas or Fort Worth?
It’s about time. This was a suggestion bantered about when President Trump first took office. Departments such as Agriculture, Interior, and Energy should be near the locations where most of their responsibilities are. Added benefit.....get the employees out of the swamp.
Send them to Iowa. Most of them have never actually seen a farm .
It’s about time!! Move the rest out as well.
(As in, "Trust me, I work for the Feral Government.")
Get them out of VA and make VA a red state again
No reason why the new FBI headquarters can’t be in Kansas City. If that’s too far for them, relocate it to West Virginia instead
DC needs moved out of DC .. Topeka, Billings, etc
Great, get them out of DC and then through attrition emplacement them with regular Americans who live under the rules that are made
Good. The best way to drain the Swamp is to relocate these agencies from their isolated citadel of big government liberalism to where they are living with and surrounded by real Americans.
I’m howling with glee over this! I hope it kills the treatment of residents of rural communities like this one as tribute-paying serfs-let the bureaucrats from DC come live where we do-get their hands dirty by clearing dead trees and brush from a forest or going out in a field being harvested-maybe do something useful...
My son works for the Dept of Labor and his office is located where most of its responsibilities are. He’s also lucky in that most of the people he works with are veterans and very conservative!
Lots of room in Kansas and Nebraska. Lots of agriculture too.
Four dimensional chess indeed.
“Send them to Iowa.”
Even better, both of those functions could be contracted out to a consortium of land-grant universities (like Iowa State) that have a great history of service to agriculture. Put it on a 5-year renewable grant, subject to performance standards and reviews. Make the grant funding contingent on gaining outside funding from those benefitting from the services provided, i.e. “Big Agriculture”, not the family farmer.
Des Moines, KCMO, etc.
Shoulda been done decades ago.
“Send them to Iowa.”
If you build it, they will come...
Send them all to Nome Alaska.
5.56mm
Saipan.
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