Layoff Plans Are Due Thursday. Feds Are Terrified.

Agencies across the federal government are facing a Thursday deadline to submit plans for sweeping workforce cuts and reorganizations.

President Donald Trump ordered agencies last month to draft plans for “large-scale reductions in force,” and his administration gave agencies a March 13 deadline to hand over plans for “initial agency cuts and reductions,” with another round due in April.

Workers inside energy and environmental agencies — who have already seen colleagues terminated in the early days of Trump’s term — are anxiously awaiting details of the administration’s next targets.

They’re bracing for steep cuts.

“People are completely terrified,” said one Interior Department employee, who was granted anonymity because they fear reprisal. “There are rumors circulating” about which offices and programs the administration might single out for cuts, that person said, but staffers hadn’t yet heard details from management about the specifics.

“We’re also kind of puzzled,” that person said, because the expected downsizing across agencies is coming as “this administration is putting a lot of work on our plates,” including repealing Biden-era regulations.

The Interior Department has already lost employees through the administration’s “Fork in the Road” resignation offer and the firings of probationary staff, that staffer said. The Trump administration is “gonna need staff" to enact its policy agenda, they added.

The Interior Department did not respond to a request for comment about its downsizing plans. The White House and the Office of Personnel Management did not respond to requests for comment about whether agencies’ plans will be made public or about the scope or timing of layoffs across the government.

The Education Department this week announced plans to slash about half of its workforce.

‘People are so scared’

Following early signals from Trump and his aides, EPA employees are girding for dramatic reductions at their agency.

Trump recently suggested that EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin planned to cut 65 percent of the staff at EPA — a prospect the president appeared to welcome — although the White House later said that Zeldin aimed to cut about 65 percent of the agency’s spending, rather than its workforce.

Zeldin this week pledged to “massively reduce” his agency’s spending and said EPA will, “where necessary, reduce staff.”

Meanwhile, the DOGE operation led by Elon Musk announced that the leases for some EPA offices around the country have been canceled. The locations of some EPA regional offices were also included on a list of buildings the Trump administration slated for “disposal” before that list was taken down.

“Everyone is very conscious of the deadline for EPA to submit a reorganization and [reduction in force] plan,” said Nicole Cantello, the president of a union local that represents EPA regional workers.

“EPA workers continue to be concerned that EPA will close many offices around the country,” Cantello said. “Our scientists and engineers know that all EPA office buildings are essential to protecting human health and the environment.”

Marie Owens Powell, president of a union that represents EPA employees across the country, said employees at that agency fear what’s coming in the Trump plans due this week.

“People are so scared,” she said. “They don’t know if they’re going to fall into a RIF.”

Powell, who recently retired from her position as an EPA staffer after 33 years, said she never experienced a reduction in force, or a RIF, during her career with the agency. “We came close. We prepared for one, but we never fully implemented one,” she said.

Workers are afraid of potentially losing their jobs and their livelihoods, she said. They’re also afraid of the unknown. “They’re frantic at this point for lack of information,” she said.

EPA did not respond to a request for comment about its layoff and reorganization plan due this week.

The Trump administration’s building disposal plan included the Energy Department’s Washington headquarters as well as DOE offices in Germantown, Maryland. Those buildings were among the more than 400 posted online by the General Services Administration before the list was removed the following day, leaving employees who work there uncertain about their futures.

Employees at the National Science Foundation are also concerned about the upcoming layoff plans, but “there’s nothing we can do about it,” said one NSF employee who was granted anonymity because they fear reprisal. Staff at the science funding agency have been celebrating the return of probationary employees who had been terminated but were reinstated, the NSF employee said, “even if it’s only for another month or so.”

An NSF spokesperson declined to comment for this story.

More eliminations to come

The “Phase 1” goals for agency cuts due this week are just one step of the Trump administration’s extensive downsizing vision.

The strategies due Thursday will identify agency offices that provide “direct service to citizens,” explain which parts of agencies are required by law and explain whether “the agency or any of its subcomponents should be eliminated or consolidated,” according to guidance provided to agency bosses.

Agency leaders were also directed to describe the tools they intend to use to “achieve efficiencies,” including through expected staff reductions in coming years.

In the “Phase 2” plans due by April 14, agency bosses were directed to expand on their plans for overhauling their operations. That plan is set to include any proposals to relocate agency offices from Washington to other parts of the country, targets for “subsequent large-scale RIFs,” and agencies’ plans to renegotiate provisions of collective bargaining agreements deemed to “inhibit government efficiency and cost-savings.”

Agencies were told to implement those second-phase plans by Sept. 30.

Musk has previously suggested he’d like to delete most federal agencies.

“Do we really need whatever it is, 428, federal agencies?” Musk said in an interview prior to Trump’s inauguration. “I think we should be able to get away with 99 agencies,” he said.