Democrats question DOJ decision to close San Francisco environmental office

Three of California’s prominent Democratic members of Congress want answers about the U.S. Department of Justice’s decision to close its Environmental and Natural Resources Division office in San Francisco.

The office has 11 attorneys and three support staff. The move comes amidst a wider pullback from environmental enforcement by the Justice Department.

The move came to light less than a month after the U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick to run the division. Jeffrey B. Clark is known for his denial of climate change science and arguments against the legal basis for regulating emissions.

The Justice Department said the decision was a cost-cutting move brought on by notoriously expensive San Francisco office rental prices. The Nov. 8 letter from Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris demands the DOJ show its math.

“This appears to be part of a broader agenda to undermine enforcement of environmental laws in the United States — and particularly in California — and we request a copy of any analyses that support the planned closure,” the letter states.

“The letter from the California delegation asks the appropriate questions about whether this closure would, in fact, save money,” said Justin A. Savage, a partner in the environmental group at Sidley Austin LLP in Washington, D.C., in an email.

“My understanding is that ENRD leadership under President George W. Bush looked at the same issue and concluded that the heavy docket of cases and significant travel costs to San Francisco would erase any cost savings from an office closure,” he added.

Savage, who spent a decade as a prosecutor in the Environmental Enforcement Section of theoffice, said he hasn’t see recent cost analysis and wasn’t inclined to second guess the DOJ. He now represents “heavily regulated ... companies and trade organizations,” according to the firm’s website.

The Obama-era DOJ closed antitrust division field offices in four major cities during a major round of cost-cutting in 2013. Each of those decisions was heavily questioned by local congressional delegations.

The three California Democrats sought to place the move within a wider pullback from environmental enforcement. They said there had been a 21 percent decline in the Environmental Protection Agency’s staff in the region that covers Arizona, California, Hawaii and Nevada. They also urged the DOJ to consider less expensive parts of the Bay Area”and to give employees more time to consider their options.

The letter goes on to seek answers to six questions and related documents about how the decision was made. This includes calculations of the higher travel costs involved with the change.

Both Harris and Feinstein voted against Clark’s confirmation last month. Among other statements and positions, the now-former partner at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Washington, D.C. is known for a 2010 speech to the Federalist Society in which he referred to Obama’s climate change policies as “Leninist.”

According to an Oct. 19 DOJ memo, the San Francisco employees must decide by Feb. 1 if they want to relocate to a 55-employee office in Denver or to Washington, D.C., where the bulk of the division’s nearly 600 employees work. The employees were offered relocation expenses.

The memo states the change will save the Justice Department about $400,000, due to longterm office rental rates in Denver that are less than half of the costs in San Francisco.

“After careful review, it was determined that substantial savings could be achieved by closing the San Francisco field office and consolidating both staff and space in Denver,” said Wyn Hornbuckle, deputy director of public affairs for the DOJ, in an email.

Hornbuckle did not reply by press time about whether the DOJ considered letting the employees move to Sacramento, where the ENRD has a three-person office. While office rates in the city have been something of a moving target, it is significantly cheaper than San Francisco while still offering easy access to the region’s many federal courts.

The city’s Eastern District courthouse has also been a preferred venue for the DOJ in its battles with California. This includes the federal government’s recent win in U.S. v. California, 18-CV00721 (E.D. Cal., filed April 2, 2018).

That challenge blocked SB 50, a 2017 law that would have given the state the first refusal over federal land sales inside its borders. It was led by Jeffrey H. Wood, who was acting ENRD director from 2017 until this month, and argued by Eric Grant, a deputy assistant attorney general with the division.