The Interior Department has frozen its plans to “imminently” lay off employees for the duration of the federal government shutdown, a top official revealed in court documents filed late Tuesday night.
Rachel Borra, Interior’s chief human capitol officer, informed the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that her office has paused its monthslong work on a reduction in force, the government terminology for layoffs.
“Interior has no plans to, and therefore will not be, issuing RIF notices to any employees during this lapse in appropriations,” Borra wrote.
Interior, along with the Energy Department, EPA and other agencies filed updates Tuesday about their planned job reductions at the direction of Judge Susan Illston.
Illston, a Clinton appointee, issued a preliminary injunction last week that had barred federal agencies from moving forward with layoff plans if they included employees represented by numerous unions that had filed a lawsuit to stop Trump administration downsizing during the shutdown.
During the course of the lawsuit, Interior revealed that it had planned to eliminate more than 2,000 jobs across the department, including at the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Geological Survey and the Office of the Secretary.
The Trump administration previously argued that Interior should be allowed to move forward with RIFs during the shutdown because they had already been in the works before government funding ran out. But Borra indicated those plans are on hold.
“To be clear, the Department had been considering potential RIFs for months before the lapse in appropriations, independent of the lapse in appropriations,” Borra wrote. “But any final decision to take action and issue RIF notices has not yet occurred and, in fact, is presently on hold, given the lapse in appropriations. Any decision to restart the RIF process is subject to further review and discussion by agency leadership.”
Reporter Scott Streater contributed.
