In December, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) published two documents related to the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC), a facility located just north of Greenbelt. In July, the USDA had announced that it would vacate this facility after winding down research there during the next few years.
One of the documents published in December summarizes the support for BARC expressed during this fall’s public comment period on the departmentwide reorganization plan. The other document shows how deeply the USDA cut its research staff nationwide during 2025.
By January 11, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins must report to Congress how much she will spend on BARC and on each of her department’s other research units during Fiscal Year (FY) 2026. Public Law 119-37 establishes this deadline as occurring 60 days after the law was passed. It is inconvenient for the Secretary that strong support for BARC has come to light so close to this deadline.
Strong Support
Published on December 8, the USDA’s summary of public comments can be found by searching online for USDA Reorganization Summary. This 31-page document reveals there is strong support for increasing BARC funding among respondents in the Mid-Atlantic states and beyond and from both the public and elected officials. The summary also shows strong opposition to vacating BARC.
The summary states that 2,185 individuals submitted comments about BARC and 2,015 of them express “strong opposition to the potential closure or reorganization of BARC.” Commenters said BARC is “widely recognized as a hub for agricultural innovation,” and they have concerns about “potential loss of scientific leadership.”
USDA lists the top 10 recommendations that it received. The first item on the list is “protect and expand research centers.”
The USDA published the full text of only a handful of the 46,000 comments received on its reorganization plan. The public is being asked to trust that the department’s summary mentions the significant points in all of these comments.
Deficient Analysis
The summary published on December 8 is the only document that the USDA has published to follow up on this fall’s public comment period. It is possible that USDA’s decision making has been unaffected by the comments it received.
The summary does not argue that these comments increase the department’s confidence that the reorganization plan is in the nation’s best interest. Nor does it assert that any issue raised by the comments requires the USDA to revise or cancel any part of the reorganization plan.
BARC is a major facility, and the USDA has yet to publish an estimate of the economic impact of vacating BARC and the large office complex on BARC’s campus called the George Washington Carver Center. The public is concerned about these negative impacts according to the USDA’s December 8 summary. In 2024, the USDA had more than 500 headquarters staff and over 500 researchers who worked in Beltsville, as estimated in a November 21, 2025, post to the Greenbelt Online blog.
Deep Cuts
BARC’s staffing level in 2026 will be particularly important because BARC may have already suffered deep cuts during 2025.
The national total number of employees lost by the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in 2025 has only recently come to light. On December 17, 2025, the USDA Inspector General published this number in a report designated OAI 25-064-01. It states that, during the first half of 2025, the ARS lost 1,647 of its 7,190 employees nationwide.
In the December 17 report, the Inspector General states it is the total loss through termination, resignation and retirement, not just through the so-called Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) that attracted media attention. During the first half of 2025, the DRP rewarded any civil servant who quit voluntarily with six months of pay without having to work during those six months.
Restraining Bureaucrats
During a July 30 Senate hearing, Republicans and Democrats expressed displeasure that the Secretary of Agriculture had ignored the need for Congress’ input before she unveiled a reorganization plan. Congressmembers also expressed alarm at the magnitude of the USDA’s staffing cuts.
In November, Congress’ displeasure led it to reduce the scope of the Secretary’s discretion. The USDA appropriations bill that Congress signed in November prevents the Secretary from carrying out any reorganization during 2026 without first obtaining Congress’ approval.
Accompanying this appropriations bill, Congress issued a Joint Explanatory Statement. This statement rejects the laboratory closures and research terminations that the USDA had proposed in May 2025. The joint statement does not explicitly block the USDA from vacating BARC. This omission may be the result of the joint statement being strongly influenced by committee reports published prior to the USDA announcement that it would vacate BARC.
The appropriations bill sets the FY 2026 funding for the ARS slightly higher than it was in FY 2024. In this way, the bill rejects the funding cut that the USDA had proposed in May.
Emphasizing this point, the Joint Explanatory Statement states that Congress intends the USDA in 2026 to fund research at no less than it did in 2024. To reach this threshold at BARC individually, the USDA would have to increase this year’s BARC funding to at least $144 million instead of decreasing it to $129 million as the USDA had proposed in May.
Uncertain Future
As long as this year’s agricultural research spending is no lower than it was in 2024 on the national level, Congress’ Joint Explanatory Statement may allow the Secretary of Agriculture to reduce funding at some research facilities this year.
Nonetheless, Congress’s top comment on the departmentwide reorganization plan was “sustain BARC’s operational status and ensure its research missions continue without disruption, preserving a vital hub of innovation.” This point was stated in the USDA’s December 8 summary of the public comment period.
The Secretary believes she has the authority to relocate research centers, and her July 24 memorandum claims that authority derives from a 1953 law. In contrast, what the 1953 law actually authorizes is the USDA relocating employees who administer “farm programs,” i.e., financial assistance programs for individual farms.
The President has not directed that the BARC campus be vacated. During his campaign, Trump did promise to move federal workers out of Washington, D.C. However, none of his executive orders that discuss shrinking the federal workforce name a particular city, and most of them invoke the goal of reducing inefficiency. BARC advocates have argued that conducting agricultural research in Prince George’s County is particularly efficient because of the great opportunities for collaboration with nearby researchers at the FDA, NOAA, NASA and NIH.
January Deadline
In less than two weeks, the Secretary of Agriculture is facing a legal deadline to report more than just the FY 2026 funding for each ARS research unit. In addition, Public Law 119-37 requires the Secretary to report by January 11 how many people currently work at each research unit and how many people she plans to hire at each unit during FY 2026.
Secretary Rollins’ public statements give no indication she is aware of this deadline. The News Review asked the USDA Office of Communications and the Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics how the Secretary plans to handle the January 11 deadline. No reply was received before press time.
