For more than five decades, NASA occupied several floors of office space in Manhattan rented from Columbia University, where employees researched how warming temperatures could alter weather and climate. Last year, the Trump administration abruptly forced all NASA employees out of that office to save money, officials said. This year, it's asking employees to move into new spaces. But the government continues to pay millions annually in rent for the old space.
NASA's move was part of a series of relocations launched by the Trump administration across at least six federal agencies that have continued through the summer. The relocations, agency leaders say, will reduce the government's real estate footprint, cut costs and decentralize operations away from the Washington, D.C. core.
But moving is costing the government money, an NPR review of public records shows, and federal workers say the relocations have been poorly coordinated and are causing work disruptions. The moves have also violated laws that require Congress to authorize relocations, according to two legal complaints filed in July against federal agencies and against senior leaders in the Trump administration.
"You're not supposed to be doing this," said Steve Gutierrez, a representative with the National Federation of Federal Employees, the union representing U.S. Forest Service workers. "But oversight [in Congress] hasn't done anything about it."
Costly leases, buildings with bedbugs, bad Wi-Fi
NASA employees who were based at Columbia, where they often collaborated on research with faculty, were instructed to report to four new locations spread out across New York City by August, emails reviewed by NPR show. But the federal government has continued to pay more than $2.5 million annually to rent the five, now-empty floors near Columbia, public records reveal. That lease doesn't expire until 2031.
"Now they're paying this extra money for us to have seats so that we can return to office," said a current NASA employee who was told to report to one of the new locations. "It made zero sense."
Current federal employees requested that NPR not use their names because they feared retribution for speaking to the media.
Hundreds of employees with the U.S. Forest Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, are also being affected this summer.
In a budget hearing in Washington in April, Forest Service Chief Tom Schulz said many of the agency's employees would have to move locations to help the agency maximize "value to the American taxpayer." But Schulz said the moves wouldn't happen until after the wildfire season, when many employees who coordinate wildfire response are busiest and federal firefighters' lives are at greatest risk.
"We do not anticipate moving any of the field personnel in any fashion until after the fire season," said Schulz.
Yet on July 22, as federal firefighters were on high alert as dozens of wildfires were spreading across multiple states, Schulz sent an email to Forest Service staff informing them that the reorganization would begin that week.
When asked why the agency was starting the reorganization during wildfire season, the USDA emailed a statement to NPR that did not answer the question. But the statement confirmed that around 600 employees would receive updated assignments by August 20, and of those, "approximately 75 may involve relocation."
"You said you weren't going to do this until end of fire season, and now you're doing [it] in the middle of fire season," Gutierrez said.
Other agency leaders have also sent mixed messages. In February, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said the agency was moving forward with moving out employees who help administer the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, from a building in Alexandria, Va. As of June, the government was renting that building from a private company for more than $4 million a year.
"This is a long overdue move to protect American taxpayer dollars from being wasted on expensive real estate inside the Washington, D.C. area when our government should be closer to the farmers and ranchers we serve," Rollins said in a press release.
But the lease in Alexandria doesn't end until 2034, public records show. And while some SNAP employees may be moved to other locations, the employees who were told to move out of Alexandria haven't been directed to relocate near ranches. They've been told to report by the end of August to two buildings, one in Washington and another in Maryland.
In May, that Maryland location was treated for a bedbug infestation. The agency informed staff it expects the infestation to be fully mitigated by the time new USDA employees arrive. But as of late July, the agency told employees it was still working on the bedbug problem, internal USDA communications reviewed by NPR show.
The USDA did not respond to a list of emailed questions about the bedbugs or its former office lease.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) employees have also experienced problems with their new building, current workers said. That agency is responsible for protecting consumers from financial harm and ensuring financial institutions comply with federal rules.
CFPB employees previously worked in a building in Washington that was owned by the government. When Russell Vought became the agency's acting director in 2025, he closed CFPB headquarters and directed staff to stop virtually all work.
Then, in 2026, the agency sent an email in May telling workers they would have to report in person by July at a new office in Washington that the government rents. By the time some CFPB staff arrived to begin working on the first three floors of that building, there were not enough desks for all the employees at the agency, current CFPB workers said. And the floors they were assigned to work from did not have functional Wi-Fi, the employees confirmed. Three CFPB workers said the lack of consistent Wi-Fi prevented them from efficiently doing their jobs.
"Right now the internet is not working at all. There's no main internet," said one CFPB worker who worked from the building for two weeks in mid July.
By the end of the month, another worker said the problem had been resolved.
"They seem to have finally gotten Wi-Fi up after three to four weeks of us officially being back to our duty stations," said Steve Wheeler, a data scientist at CFPB, on July 30.
Agencies have run afoul of the law, unions say
Communication with employees about the requirement to move to new offices has been haphazard, workers at six agencies said.
"The communication around this relocation has been insane," said a worker at the CFPB, who said they received few emails informing them about the requirement to work in person earlier in the summer.
Notifications about the requirement to work from new buildings for NASA were also sporadic.
"The communications have been about one update per month, and then mid-June they're like, 'Yeah, this thing is happening July 1st. Everyone show up,'" a current NASA employee said. "So much of this stuff, they tell you one thing in person and then it's slightly different when they send the email."
NASA and the CFPB did not respond to requests for comment about the conditions of the new buildings and the inconsistent communication.
Hundreds of workers with the Army Corps of Engineers have also been subject to mandatory relocations and minimum communication. Employees at that agency are tasked with carrying out infrastructure projects that protect military and public spaces from long-term risks, like erosion, and more immediate problems, including disaster recovery after storms.
In February, Trump-nominated Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Adam Telle published a memo telling more than 400 of the agency's Manhattan-based workers that they would have to move to an undetermined new location, some of them as soon as August 15, so that the agency could be "optimized for quality, speed and cost to deliver for the American people." In March, the agency announced it was looking for new office space in three cities in New Jersey.
The Corps of Engineers has been in New York since the 1700s. The employees' union, the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) Local 98, opposes the move from New York, saying it could delay ongoing, multi-million dollar infrastructure projects in the region, including one meant to protect more than 80 miles along New York's coastline from flooding. The relocation could also be expensive. It could cost more than $3 million to move just the agency's information technology infrastructure to a new location, agency records obtained by the union show.
Although some employees were expected to start working from a new location by mid-August, as of late July, no new lease had been signed, Corps of Engineers Public Affairs Director Joshua Voda confirmed to NPR on July 23.
But employees didn't hear that directly from the agency.
"Until we're able to execute a lease we're also unable to confirm firm timelines for our staff," Voda told NPR. "We haven't put any new information out for a matter of weeks."
Confusion about the move has caused so much chaos that some employees have already resigned, said Daniel Kim, a structural engineer at the agency and president of the union.
"These are people that have tons of expertise that is just walking out the door," said Kim. "The lack of communication on this move has been pretty surprising, it's been surprisingly bad."
Union leaders and lawmakers say some of the orders to move employees out of old buildings and into new ones violate laws that require congressional approval before agency leaders make costly real estate decisions or order large numbers of people to relocate.
"You need congressional approval to implement this reorganization," Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., told Forest Service Chief Schulz at an agriculture hearing in Washington on July 22, before referencing the lawsuit the employees' union filed against the agency that claims the reorganization is an illegal attempt to further reduce the amount of Forest Service employees. Last year, agencies lost more than 300,000 employees during a government-wide effort to thin the federal workforce.
Schulz responded that the agency only needed to inform Congress about the reorganization.
"The letter of the law seems clear enough to me, and I'm going to be watching the outcome, obviously, of that litigation very closely," Craig said, "because I don't take the flaunting of congressional intent lightly."
A similar federal law prohibits the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) from moving its headquarters away from Washington without approval from Congress. When HUD was formed, its rules also explicitly stated that the agency must be "established at the seat of government."
But after 60 years in Washington, earlier this year, HUD's Trump-appointed secretary Scott Turner began ordering workers to relocate to a new building in Alexandria, Va. On July 27, the D.C. Attorney General's office filed a lawsuit against HUD and Turner. More than 80% of the agency had already been moved out of Washington by then, the lawsuit claims. Since Congress never approved that relocation, the move is unlawful, the lawsuit alleges.
Workers at multiple federal agencies said they fear the relocations will continue to deplete their numbers.
"This has just caused a massive amount of chaos, uncertainty, and panic," said a current employee at the CFPB. "We really see this forced relocation as another part of trying to destroy the CFPB and traumatize our workforce into quitting."
NPR would like to hear from more people who work with federal agencies and have information to share. You can email the reporter of this article, Chiara Eisner, at ceisner@npr.org, or contact her on Signal here, username ceis.78.
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