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1 1 (August 13, 2019)

handle is hein.crs/govbatb0001 and id is 1 raw text is: I Congressional Research Service lrfIfo r r g th Vegislative debate since 1914 0 Updated August 13, 2019 Proposed Relocation/Realignment of USDA's ERS and NIFA Background As part of the proposed reorganization of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Secretary Perdue announced in August 2018 the department's intention to relocate the Economic Research Service (ERS) and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) outside the Washington, DC, metropolitan area. He also proposed realigning ERS from the Office of the Undersecretary for Research, Education, and Economics (REE) to the Office of the Chief Economist. Among the stated reasons for the agency relocations are (1) improving USDA's ability to attract and retain qualified staff without the burden of the high cost of living; (2) placing USDA resources closer to the many agricultural stakeholders who live and work outside the Washington, DC, area; and (3) creating departmental savings on high employment costs and rent. In a subsequent Federal Register notice, USDA invited interested parties to make proposals for siting the relocated headquarters of ERS and NIFA. In October 2018, USDA announced that it had received 136 expressions of interest in 35 states. In early May, three sites were chosen for final determination: the Purdue University area (Indiana), Kansas City (Missouri), and Research Triangle (North Carolina). Two additional back-up sites were named: Madison, Wisconsin, and St. Louis, Missouri. On June 13, Secretary Perdue announced that the Kansas City region would be the new location for NIFA and ERS. A cost-benefit analysis of the relocation was also released with the announcement USDA further announced that the department would not realign ERS with the Office of the Chief Economist but retain the agency under the REE mission area. Current Status of the Proposed Relocation With the June decision to relocate to the Kansas City region, current ERS and NIFA employees were given until July 15 to accept an offer to relocate or to separate from service with the agencies. As of that date, 72 ERS employees and 73 NIFA employees agreed to the move, and 250 (99 from ERS and 151 from NIFA) declined. Seventy-six ERS employees and 21 NIFA employees will remain in Washington, D.C. In response to a letter from Representative Steny Hoyer and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton in late September 2018, USDA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) began a review of the proposed relocation. The OIG report was released on August 5, 2019, and found that USDA had legal authority to realign ERS and relocate the agencies. However, OIG concluded that under the FY2018 Consolidated Appropriations Act (P.L. 115-141), there were certain limitations on USDA's budget authorities to realign or relocate their offices. The OIG found that USDA had not obtained Appropriations Committee approval, as required by Section 717(a) of that act, nor had it complied with the reporting deadline requirement in Section 753 of the act. That same language was in the FY2019 appropriations bill and in the House-passed FY2020 bill. In response, USDA stated its disagreement with the OIG's questioning its budget authorities regarding the relocation. The Department asserted that its actions fully comply with all applicable laws and that the budgetary provisions cited in the OIG report requiring committee approval are unconstitutional. OIG, in response, noted that USDA's position was not consistent with prior positions taken by the Department and recommended that USDA seek the Office of General Counsel's opinion regarding compliance with the relevant appropriations provisions, including whether there were any corresponding violations of the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits agencies from spending funds not appropriated. Economic Research Service ERS was founded in 1961 as the successor agency of the Bureau of Agricultural Economics, which was established in 1922. ERS conducts economic and statistical analyses on agricultural commodities, trade and international agriculture, rural demography, agricultural marketing, food price forecasting, surveys of farm and crop production practices, farm and rural labor and income analysis, food safety and nutrition, natural resources, and the environment. More recently, ERS has developed geospatial online mapping tools to integrate and display data and research results geographically. National Institute of Food and Agriculture A 2004 USDA task force report recommended the formation of a National Institute for Food and Agriculture. The task force recommended that such an institute should * support fundamental research addressing the frontiers of knowledge while leading to practical results or further scientific discovery; * distribute research grants through a competitive, peer- reviewed process and be solely a grant-awarding entity, not one that conducts its own in-house research; * enhance, not replace, existing USDA research; * receive oversight from committees of scientists and a council of advisors; * achieve increasing annual appropriations over a five- year period until it received $1 billion per year; and https:!crsreports~cong --ssqg

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