Copyright The Denver Post
The Trump administration is seeking to lay off nearly 200 Coloradans who work for the Department of the Interior managing public lands and conducting ecological research. The planned cuts were outlined in a filing made public Monday in an ongoing federal court case stemming from a lawsuit by two labor unions seeking to halt the layoffs. In total, the department plans to eliminate more than 2,000 jobs across the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and the department’s administrative offices. In Colorado, the proposed cuts include: 87 of the 177 positions (49%) in the Bureau of Land Management’s National Operations Center in Denver 33 of the 595 positions (6%) in the BLM Colorado office 40 of the 224 positions (18%) at the National Park Service Denver Service Center 39 of the 69 positions (57%) at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Fort Collins Science Center The layoffs are blocked by a judge’s order, but the case is scheduled for a hearing in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Oct. 28. The department’s chief human capital officer, in a court filing, said the layoffs were not connected to the current government shutdown. The planned layoffs drew criticism from Colorado’s Democratic delegation in Washington as well as conservation groups. “The Trump administration’s unlawful and politically motivated attacks on workers at our land management agencies — the NPS, BLM, USGS, and elsewhere — will inflict direct harm on both these civil servants and all Coloradans who treasure our lands and water,” Rep. Joe Neguse, a Democrat representing Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District, said in a statement. “It is shameful.”
