Until Feb. 14, I was a federal employee working in Moab. I began working for the U.S. Geological Survey — part of the Department of the Interior — in February 2024 and was looking forward to the one-year anniversary of my employment. That anniversary also would have marked the end of my one-year probationary period.
However, on that Friday evening, I received a termination notice citing my performance, despite having achieved marks of “exceeding expectations” in my most recent review. My termination, along with thousands of others across the country, is part of what federal workers are calling the Valentine’s Day Massacre — a mass reduction in force at the behest of President Donald Trump and carried out by his left-hand man, Elon Musk, who leads the Department of Government Efficiency.
What I would like to know is this: What are Utah’s political leaders doing to stand up for Utah’s federal work force?
Speaking only about the value of the Department of the Interior (USGS provides science for the Department of the Interior; the use of science in management is legally required): In Fiscal Year 2023, Bureau of Land Management lands contributed $8.6 billion dollars in economic output to the state of Utah and supported more than 44,000 Utah jobs while National Parks in Utah generated $3 billion dollars for the state and supported more than 26,000 Utah jobs.
Utah’s federal lands support recreation, ranching, mining, timber harvest and many other revenue-generating activities that require management for long-term sustainability. That management is performed by federal employees who live and spend money in Utah communities.
There are around 57,000 federal workers in Utah, and they have a meaningful fiscal impact. According to a 2014 report, wages to federal workers based in Utah are an important infusion of outside money to the state, representing more than $149.8 million in federal payroll for employees of federal land management agencies at the time of the report.
In a recent House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Federal Lands hearing, Utah Rep. Celeste Maloy (UT-02) said: “I’d like to see agencies do less, with less.” With skeleton-crew workforces, federal agencies certainly will be doing less, and consequently Utah will receive much less in return. Austerity for all.
Now, rather than paying income taxes in Utah and continuing to work sustaining the health of the federal lands that fuel Utah’s economy, I am applying for unemployment in Utah. How does that benefit taxpayers? Because these layoffs were hasty and careless, the research I was paid to do over the last 11+ months is unfinished, won’t ultimately aid public lands management and represents another waste of taxpayer money. Multiply my story across thousands of federal employees who are now in the same circumstance.
The writer Wallace Stegner, who spent his formative years in Utah — and who was, incidentally, my grandfather — wrote: “I am […] terribly proud to be a [hu]man and an American, with all the rights and privileges that those words connote; and most of all I am humble before the responsibilities that are also mine. For no right comes without a responsibility, and being born luckier than most of the world’s millions, I am also born more obligated.”
As more federal worker layoffs in other agencies and departments loom, will Utah’s members of congress use their privilege — and their responsibility — to fight for those jobs and for Utah’s future?
Dr. M. Allison Stegner is an ecologist who worked for the U.S. Geological Survey in Moab.
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