Maryland and Virginia Democrats propose bill aimed at halting arbitrary federal agency moves

WASHINGTON – Maryland and Virginia congressional Democrats are proposing legislation aimed at preventing costly federal agency moves pushed by the Trump administration.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Maryland, and Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Virginia, are sponsoring companion bills that would require federal agencies to conduct and share comprehensive cost-benefit analyses with Congress and the public before permanent relocations.

“Their goal there, we should be clear, is to pressure federal employees who work in those agencies into quitting,” Van Hollen said at a press conference Thursday. “And when you do that, you lose enormous expertise, and you lose the important services that those individuals are providing.”

The introduction follows a Feb. 26 memo from the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget, in which the Trump administration gave federal agencies until April 14 to propose relocations from the Washington area to lower-cost regions.

“We want to make sure that before that happens, we ask ourselves some simple questions…Is it actually going to improve services? Is it actually going to be cost-effective?” Van Hollen said. “The American taxpayers deserve answers to those questions before they make a very costly move that will jeopardize and sabotage the services provided to the American people.”

The two Democrats were joined by fellow Maryland Democratic Reps. Steny Hoyer, Jamie Raskin, Sarah Elfreth, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-District of Columbia, and Rep. Don Beyer, D-Virginia, all cosponsors of the bill. Among other cosponsors are Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks and Rep. April McClain Delaney, Virginia Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, and Virginia Reps. Gerry Connolly and Eugene Vindman, all Democrats.

“Every one of my colleagues wants to get rid of fraud, waste and abuse…but that rhetoric (from the current administration) is a cover for an agenda that is perverse and contrary to the interests of the United States of America,” Hoyer said. “If our colleagues across the aisle genuinely share that objective, they’ll support this bill.”

Van Hollen first introduced the COST of Relocations Act in 2020 and updated it in 2023, but it failed to advance past the Senate floor both times. Old versions of the bill required federal agencies seeking to relocate more than 5 percent or more than 100 of its employees to conduct a cost-benefit analysis.

“We hoped (the bill) wouldn’t be necessary again, but it is. 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.

During the first Trump administration, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Economic Research Service were abruptly relocated from Washington to Kansas City, Missouri, nearly 1,000 miles away. More than 500 employees were given just 33 days to decide whether to lose their jobs or uproot their lives, NPR reported.

Nearly half of the workforce left, and staff with at least two years of experience at these agencies dropped from 83% in 2018 to 27% in 2021, Subramanyam said. As a result, grants for nutrition assistance and food safety were delayed for months, and critical agricultural research was drastically reduced or eliminated.

“Former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney suggested that moving the agency outside the D.C. region was an effective way to get staff to quit … and now the second Trump administration is using that strategy on steroids,” Subramanyam said.

Van Hollen emphasized that this is an Trump-Musk attempt to “impose trauma” on federal workers, a reference to private remarks about federal workers delivered last year by Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget and proponent of Trump’s Project 2025, which the lawmakers repeatedly quoted throughout the presser.

Hoyer doubled down, saying, “They want to force federal workers to uproot their lives, to take their children out of school, to sell their homes, to break their leases, all with little or no advance notice.”

The Washington region is home to nearly 20 percent of all federal employees. Subramanyam warned that agency relocations would have a devastating impact on the local economy.

“American families will not be better off if we decimate critical health and safety agencies with poorly planned relocations,” Subramanyam said. “It’s not just our constituents that will be hurt. It’ll be all American people. And if you’re going to relocate a federal agency and disrupt the services it provides to the public for several years, you should justify it to the American taxpayer and to Congress.”

Van Hollen said that he does not feel hopeful about the legislation passing in the Republican-controlled Congress, but he said he strongly believes in sending a message.

”(Cost-benefit analyses are) needed more than ever right now, and we should be getting those answers,” Van Hollen said. “We don’t expect that (the current administration) is going to do it because that’s not their purpose. And so we’re here to blow the whistle on what’s happening.”