USDA said it would relocate Forest Service HQ and close 57 of 77 research facilities without required congressional approval

On April 16, 2026, the chief of the U.S. Forest Service, Tom Schultz, said publicly that the agency intended to relocate its headquarters to Salt Lake City and close 57 of its 77 research facilities "with or without approval from Congress," citing guidance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of General Counsel that "the secretary has this authority." The statement asserted that the executive branch could carry out a major agency reorganization even where Congress had attached approval conditions to the department's funding.

USDA's legal rationale invoked the unitary executive doctrine and the Supreme Court's decision in INS v. Chadha to argue that appropriations provisions — Agriculture Appropriations Section 716 and Interior Appropriations Section 421, which require 30 days' advance approval from congressional appropriations committees before relocating offices or reorganizing programs affecting ten or more staff — are unconstitutional "legislative vetoes" that the department is not bound to follow. The position mirrored a 2019 episode in which then-USDA official Stephen Vaden, now Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, wrote that "USDA is not required to abide by unconstitutional laws" to justify a similar relocation over congressional objection.

Representative Chellie Pingree, a Democrat on the relevant appropriations subcommittee, said: "We're the appropriating committee that has oversight on the budget. I feel like we shouldn't have to go watch the website." A union survey found that roughly three-quarters of employees facing relocation said they would not move.

Updates

2026-07-02 — Unions, cities, and counties sought an injunction to block the reorganization [4, 5]

A coalition of labor unions, nonprofits, cities, and counties filed a supplemental complaint and a motion for a preliminary injunction in the case captioned AFGE v. Trump on July 2, 2026, asking a federal court to halt the USDA reorganization as unlawful because it proceeded without the advance congressional approval that appropriations law requires.

2026-09-03 — Forest Service finalized closure of 23 research stations, kept 41 others open [6]

The Forest Service announced it is proceeding with closure of 23 research stations across more than a dozen states, moving ongoing work to other locations and reassigning the roughly 95 affected workers within their commuting areas. An additional 41 facilities that had faced possible closure will remain open after members of Congress and local officials raised concerns. Associate Chief Chris French said the closures, combined with previously announced closures of regional offices in Atlanta, Milwaukee, and Portland, would save about $16 million; Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the headquarters relocation to Salt Lake City remains slated for completion by next summer.

2026-09-08 — Unions filed new APA lawsuit against USDA reorganization [7, 8]

A coalition of federal unions — the American Federation of Government Employees, AFSCME, the National Federation of Federal Employees, and the National Treasury Employees Union — filed a new lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, requesting a preliminary injunction to halt the reorganization as arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act. The filing follows a September 2, 2026 ruling by Judge Susan Illston that the plaintiffs' preliminary-injunction motion belonged in its own lawsuit rather than the broader AFGE v. Trump case that held the July 2 motion. The unions said USDA proceeded despite 46,845 public comments, 82% negative, and never assessed how the resulting attrition would affect SNAP and WIC administration; an August 28 USDA filing showed roughly one in three employees told to relocate was leaving the agency rather than moving.