By JENNIFER SCHUTT/States Newsroom
WASHINGTON — The Interior Department announced Monday it will pause efforts to lay off 2,050 employees throughout the country, after a federal judge expanded a temporary restraining order late last week.
The new filing provides more information about how the Trump administration plans to reduce the size and scope of a department that oversees much of the country’s public lands.
Rachel Borra, chief human capital officer at Interior, wrote in a 35-page document the layoffs would affect employees at the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service and U.S. Geological Survey, among others.
The National Park Service layoffs would target several areas of the country, including 63 of 224 workers at the Northeast regional office, 69 of 223 at the Southeast regional office and 57 of 198 at the Pacific West regional office.
The Pacific West region encompasses more than “60 national park sites across California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, parts of Arizona and Montana, and the territories of Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands.”
The layoffs cannot take place under the temporary restraining order that U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California Judge Susan Illston clarified and expanded Friday during an emergency hearing. The layoffs would be further blocked if Illston, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton, issues a preliminary injunction during a hearing scheduled for later this month.
Advocates and current and former Interior staff members have told States Newsroom that bare-bones staffing during the government shutdown across the department and the U.S. Forest Service already is leaving America’s treasured natural assets vulnerable to lasting damage.
Hundreds proposed for layoffs
The other briefs filed Monday were from the departments of Commerce and Health and Human Services, which said in earlier court documents officials planned to lay off hundreds of federal workers.
Commerce’s latest numbers say it would like to lay off 102 workers, while the Health and Human Services Department told the judge officials plan to get rid of 954 people. Both confirmed those efforts are on hold under the temporary restraining order.
The numbers were different from those included in earlier filings to the court in the lawsuit, which was brought by labor unions representing federal workers.
Those declarations in the earlier filings detailed the below layoff plans:
- Commerce: Approximately 600 employees
- Education: Remained at 466 employees
- Health and Human Services: 982 employees
- Housing and Urban Development: 442 employees
- Homeland Security: 54 employees
- Treasury: 1,377 employees
Federal attorneys wrote in Monday’s court documents that all other departments “have determined, to the best of their knowledge and based on their investigation to date, that they have no additional information to provide in response to the Court’s October 17, 2025, modified TRO, that was not already provided in their October 17, 2025, declarations.”
Energy Department layoffs
The Energy Department wrote in a filing that it didn’t need to declare any planned layoffs to the court since the Reduction in Force notices it had issued didn’t have an effective date. An earlier court filing said the department sent those notices to 179 employees.
Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., and House Energy-Water Appropriations subcommittee ranking member Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, wrote in a letter that the Energy Department’s planned layoffs were “a clear act of political retribution that will hurt communities across the country.”
“These actions, which reportedly affect 179 employees, appear to be part of a broader effort to implement the administration’s budget request without congressional approval—circumventing the appropriations process and undermining congressional intent,” Murray and Kaptur wrote. “The Department’s actions will raise energy prices for American families by disrupting the implementation of key programs that increase supply and reduce costs for hard-working Americans.”
The layoffs are one of the many ways the Trump administration is approaching the government shutdown differently than it did during the last prolonged funding lapse, which took place from December 2018 through January 2019.
White House officials have canceled funding approved by Congress for projects in regions of the country that tend to vote for Democrats. And signaled they may not provide back pay for federal workers placed on furlough, which is authorized by a 2019 law that President Donald Trump signed during his first term.
