Joe Neguse

U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colorado, has introduced a bill in Congress to prohibit mass terminations at federal land management agencies, including the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.

The proposed legislation comes after President Donald Trump’s administration last year fired tens of thousands of employees across the federal government, including hundreds at the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.

“Extreme weather conditions, drought and unprecedented fire risk, coupled with staffing shortages across the Interior Department and Forest Service, have placed our public lands and the civil servants that protect them in a dangerous position — the consequences of which are real and immediate,” Neguse said in a statement.

If signed into law, the Public Lands Workforce Stability Act would extend a three-month moratorium on federal layoffs that was included in a spending measure that ended the government shutdown last fall, according to a news release. The new moratorium on layoffs would reportedly apply to the Forest Service and the Department of Interior, which houses the Bureau of Land Management, National Parks Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and would prevent mass terminations at the land management agencies through 2030.

Trump’s now-defunct Department of Government Efficiency slashed more than 1,700 jobs at public land management agencies in Colorado , or roughly 25% of the state’s federal public lands staff, according to the news release.

While wildfire personnel were exempt from the cuts, the federal government lost thousands of employees with Incident Qualification Cards — also known as “red cards” — that allow them to assist on wildfires. Agencies like the Forest Service had to ask some of these employees to come back.

The bill will likely face an uphill battle since Republicans control both houses of Congress and the White House.

“The Public Lands Workforce Stability Act (would halt) these attacks on our hard-working public servants and safeguards this workforce’s ability to manage critical programs that safeguard natural resources, protect communities, fight wildfires, and more,” Neguse said. “It is imperative that we have a fully staffed workforce to care for our most treasured public lands.”