Md. senator says sweeping HHS cuts will bring court fight
Democratic lawmakers from Maryland, Virginia and D.C. criticized the Department of Health and Human Services plan announced Thursday to cut 10,000 jobs, arguing it will be detrimental to Americans’ health and that it needs to be fought in the courts.
HHS has numerous division offices in Maryland and D.C., and the cuts would be another major blow to federal workers in the region.
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Maryland’s senior senator, said it would also be bad for the country.
“That will hurt our public health, it’ll make it harder for Americans to receive the health care they need,” Van Hollen said, noting the plan comes from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who he had opposed being confirmed for that position.
Van Hollen said he has no doubt the cuts will face legal challenges.
“This is not yet a done deal,” he said. “This is an illegal action. You can’t just fire thousands of people without going through a process.”
Van Hollen said lawmakers had anticipated there would be more cuts announced by President Donald Trump’s administration, but that doesn’t make them any easier to accept.
He also said it’s possible the job reductions could face legal challenges, since Congress has appropriated specific funds for specific agencies.
The 10,000 cuts come on top of about 10,000 HHS jobs that have already been eliminated through early retirement and other means.
HHS said in a statement that it intends to reduce its current workforce of 82,000 full-time employees to 62,000.
Legislation seeks to keep federal jobs in the D.C. area
On Thursday, Van Hollen and Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., reintroduced legislation that aims to prevent the Trump administration from moving federal agencies out of the Washington area to other parts of the country.
They were flanked outside the Capitol by several other lawmakers, including Maryland Reps. Steny Hoyer, Jamie Raskin and Sarah Elfreth; Virginia Reps. Don Beyer and Eugene Vindman; and, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton.
The Conducting Oversight to Secure Transparency (COST) of Relocations Act would require any federal agency preparing to relocate a significant part of its workforce to conduct a cost-benefit analysis before a move is carried out.
Several of the lawmakers have tens of thousands of federal workers in their districts. They pointed out that the Trump administration has indicated it may try to move at least 100,000 federal workers to other parts of the country.
“It’s necessary in order to stop Donald Trump and Elon Musk from wasting American taxpayer dollars by sabotaging services that the American public depends on,” Van Hollen said.
A directive from the administration has given all federal agency heads until mid-April to come up with potential relocation plans for agency bureaus and offices.
Van Hollen pointed out that, during Trump’s first term, officials tried relocating federal offices and it didn’t save taxpayer money.
The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) and the Economic Research Service, two agencies within the USDA, were moved from the D.C. area to Kansas City, Missouri.
But promises of major taxpayer savings didn’t pan out.
Many experienced workers elected not to move and a GAO report questioned whether the relocation achieved the administration’s objectives.