A third-party arbitrator is ordering the Department of Health and Human Services to walk back its return-to-office mandate for thousands of employees represented by one of its unions.

Arbitrator Michael J. Falvo ruled on Monday that HHS must “rescind the return-to-office directive,” and must immediately reinstate remote work and telework agreements for members of the National Treasury Employees Union.

HHS rescinded those workplace flexibility agreements early last year, after President Donald Trump ordered federal employees to return to the office full-time.

Falvo found that HHS committed an unfair labor practice by unilaterally terminating telework and remote agreements, without regard to its five-year collective bargaining agreement with NTEU. The labor contract, which covers 2023 through 2028, states the agency can only terminate telework and remote work agreements “for cause.” That includes emergency situations and cases when an employee falls short of a “fully satisfactory” performance rating.

The ruling will impact thousands of HHS employees represented by NTEU. Its members include employees at the Food and Drug Administration, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Administration for Children and Families, the Administration on Community Living, the Health Resources and Services Administration, the National Center for Health Statistics and the HHS Office of the Secretary.

Falvo is also ordering HHS to post a signed notice, “admitting that the agency violated the statute by repudiating the collective bargaining agreement.” The arbitrator wrote that his ruling does not limit NTEU from “seeking additional remedies to the extent permitted by law.”

HHS officials argued that Trump’s return-to-office presidential memorandum supersedes the collective bargaining agreement. But the 1978 Federal Services Labor-Management Relations Statute makes it an unfair labor practice for an agency “to enforce any rule or regulation … which is in conflict with any applicable collective bargaining agreement if the agreement was in effect before the rule or regulation was prescribed.”

According to Falvo, the Federal Labor Relations Authority set a precedent in previous labor disputes that a presidential memorandum “is not a governmentwide rule or regulation that the employer is obligated by law to implement immediately upon issuance.”

“These cases compel the conclusion that the agency breached the agreement and violated the statute,” he wrote.

The arbitrator decided Trump’s return-to-office memo does not override telework and remote work protections outlined in NTEU’s collective bargaining agreement. HHS did not respond to a request for comment. NTEU declined to comment.

NTEU Chapter 282, which covers FDA headquarters employees, told members in an email that HHS is likely to appeal the arbitrator’s decision and has 30 days to do so. The union’s message states, “NTEU will push the agency to accept the ruling and restore your rights without delay.”

“This is a significant win that reaffirms that telework and remote work rights negotiated in a term contract cannot be unilaterally taken away,” NTEU Chapter 282 told members.

More than a year into the second Trump administration, several recent exceptions to its return-to-office policy have emerged.

The Labor Department’s Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs recently told employees that some of its employees will be eligible for remote work, because the agency is “extremely challenged” covering rent expenses for a fully in-office workforce.

Meanwhile, a second arbitrator ruled that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services “violated statutory obligations” to bargain with the American Federation of Government Employees over implementation of the administration’s return-to-office directive.

The arbitrator in this dispute determined CMS wasn’t required to negotiate with the union over the administration’s return-to-office mandate, but did have an obligation to ensure implementation complied with its collective bargaining agreement with AFGE.

The arbitrator ordered CMS to meet and negotiate with AFGE over the “effects of the implementation of the directive on work/life balance of employees.”

Trump touted his return-to-office mandate at a White House press briefing on Tuesday, where he looked back on the accomplishments of his first year in office.. Trump told reporters that when he took office last year, “we had so many of our federal workers who wouldn’t come into work.”

“We don’t want them sitting in their home, on their bed, working. We want them in an office that we’re paying for in Washington, D.C., or wherever it may be. And we’ve largely taken care of that mess,” Trump said. “I guarantee you they’re out on the ballfields. I guarantee you they’re out playing golf. And you can’t run a country or a company that way.”

Trump’s presidential memorandum directed agencies to terminate remote work and telework agreements, but also stated that the return-to-office mandate must be “implemented consistent with applicable law.”

“Reasonable persons could have different notions whether a presidential memorandum (or an executive order) is such a ‘rule or regulation’ under ‘applicable law.’ On January 20, 2025, what ‘applicable law’ required was not a matter of first impression,” Falvo wrote.

NTEU filed a grievance against HHS last February, after the agency issued a directive requiring all bargaining unit employees to report to the office on a full-time basis.

Union officials argued that HHS refused to negotiate with NTEU before the return-to-office memo took effect, and would agree to “post-implementation bargaining.”

HHS officials denied the grievance and told the union that an agency head “retains the statutory right to determine overall telework levels and to exclude positions from telework eligibility.”

Christina Ballance, the executive director of the agency’s National Labor and Employee Relations Office, told the arbitrator that HHS “was obligated to comply with the presidential memorandum.”

“Ultimately, the president is our chief, and if he directs that employees return to offices in person, the agency is required to do so,” Ballance said in her testimony.

HHS officials rejected NTEU’s claims that it terminated all telework and remote work agreements. They said the agency still allows situational and ad-hoc telework, as well as workplace flexibilities for military spouses and reasonable accommodations for employees with disabilities.

But Federal News Network first reported last month that a new HHS policy restricts employees with disabilities from using telework as an interim accommodation, while the agency processes their reasonable accommodation request.

HHS is also centralizing the processing of reasonable accommodation requests on behalf of its component agencies. As a result, it is inheriting a backlog of requests that HHS officials expect will take about six to eight months to review.

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As he marked one year since being sworn into office, President Donald Trump on Tuesday touted the actions of his administration — including praising the major reductions to the federal workforce throughout 2025.

“I don’t want to cut people, but when you cut them and they go out and get a better job, I like to cut them,” Trump said during a nearly two-hour press briefing, while also stating his administration “slashed tremendous numbers of people off the federal payroll.”

The White House on Tuesday also released a list of “365 wins” over the last year, commending the administration’s efforts to ensure a “merit-based” federal workforce. The list includes federal workforce actions overhauling the probationary period; eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion across government; requiring employees to work on-site full-time; slashing federal jobs; and limiting agencies to one new hire for every four employees who exit the civil service.

“I say, get rid of everybody that’s unnecessary, because that’s the way you make America great again,” Trump said. “When you have all these jobs where people are sitting around doing nothing and they get a lot of money from the government, it’s no good.”

But good government groups such as the Partnership for Public Service tell a much different story of the administration’s impact on the federal workforce. Max Stier, the Partnership’s president and CEO, described 2025 as “the most significant reduction in federal government capacity that we’ve ever experienced in our history.”

“And that reduction in capacity is best represented in our most important asset: our federal workforce,” Stier told reporters on a press call last week.

Governmentwide, federal workforce data shows that about 320,000 federal employees left government during 2025, while just tens of thousands joined the civil service. The Office of Personnel Management reported a net loss of about 220,000 federal employees over the course of the year.

“It tells a disturbing story about who we’ve lost in our government and what is actually happening to the workforce,” Stier said. “But it doesn’t tell you anything about what is truly most fundamental — their morale and what they think about what’s happening right now.”

The Partnership, a non-profit organization that advocates for non-partisan, “good government” reforms, released a report on Tuesday, noting that the Trump administration’s actions over the last year created “confusion, distrust and stress within the federal workforce.”

“There were large-scale layoffs of employees, cuts to government programs and the ending of many grants, altering how the government does — or does not — serve the public and the outcomes it can achieve,” the report states. “Not only did the government lose invaluable expertise, it became less responsive to public needs and less prepared to keep Americans safe.”

“It is impossible to gain a full picture of the layoffs and their impact,” the Partnership added. “The administration has provided few specifics about what positions have been eliminated and which personnel have been laid off or incentivized to resign.”

The Partnership’s report also detailed the specific impacts of federal workforce losses over the last year, including effects at agencies like the IRS, Social Security Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, FEMA and many others.

As a result of the governmentwide staffing cuts, the Partnership argued, agencies are less prepared to deliver disaster assistance during emergencies, and less efficient in administering crucial government programs, leading to delays in basic services and increased wait times.

By contrast, OPM Director Scott Kupor has argued that the Trump administration’s federal workforce overhauls will lead to better employee accountability, merit and performance across government. Kupor also touted the loss of one-third of OPM’s internal workforce during 2025, while saying the agency’s service delivery improved.

“President Trump was clear from day one: The federal workforce must be accountable, performance-driven and focused on serving the American people,” Kupor said in a Dec. 31 press release. “This year, OPM delivered on that vision — modernizing government operations, rewarding excellence and putting taxpayers first.”

But Rob Shriver, director of the Civil Service Strong program at Democracy Forward, questioned the Trump administration’s workforce reductions, saying there are no forward-looking plans for continuing to effectively deliver services after the cuts.

“The singular focus on headcount reduction as a blunt instrument reveals that DOGE was never about efficiency,” Shriver, a former acting director of OPM during the Biden administration, said in commentary on Tuesday. “It was about retribution and stifling dissent by intimidating federal workers into leaving their jobs or, if they decided to stay, intimidating them into not questioning their political leaders.”

At the same time, information on the federal workforce’s perspective over the course of 2025 will likely be limited. After months of postponing, OPM last year opted to cancel the 2025 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. In an attempt to fill the data gap, the Partnership conducted its own federal workforce survey.

The results of the Partnership’s survey are expected to be released in March. But Partnership officials have said it will still be difficult as an external organization to replicate the depth of data OPM can attain through FEVS.

Going forward, the Trump administration is looking to make further changes for the federal workforce, including overhauls to the probationary period and federal hiring processes, as well as performance management and senior executive development.

OPM’s Kupor said the upcoming changes will make government “leaner,” while making federal employees more results-oriented, accountable and efficient.

But some painted a darker picture for federal employees throughout 2026.

“The harms caused by these cuts have already begun to play out, and we’ll see more and more of that in 2026, when the impacts of the thoughtless workforce cuts are felt more deeply around the country,” Shriver said.

The Trump administration is also expected to soon issue a final rule to implement “Schedule Policy/Career.” The forthcoming regulations will let agencies reclassify career federal employees in “policy-influencing” positions, in effect removing their civil service protections and making them easier to fire at-will.

“The change of our federal government into one that is a loyalist workforce, as opposed to a professional one, is a process that we anticipate moving forward in 2026,” Stier said. “As challenging as 2025 was, I think we can expect even harder days ahead in 2026.”

The post Trump lauds ‘tremendous’ federal workforce cuts. Good government group calls them ‘disturbing.’ first appeared on Federal News Network.

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Congressional appropriators are one step closer to reaching a comprehensive spending deal for the rest of the fiscal year before a stopgap spending bill expires at the end of the month.

Members of the House and Senate appropriations committees released a four-bill “minibus” of fiscal 2026 spending bills on Tuesday.

Congress is roughly halfway to passing a spending plan for the rest of FY 2026. The current continuing resolution expires on Jan. 30.

The latest “minibus” covers annual appropriations for the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, as well as some smaller related agencies.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in a statement that the spending package delivers “results without waste.”

“At a time when many believed completing the FY26 process was out of reach, we’ve shown that challenges are opportunities. It’s time to get it across the finish line,” Cole said.

Here are a few highlights from the spending package:

3.8% pay raise for air traffic controllers

The spending deal would give the Federal Aviation Administration a $1.58 billion budget for fiscal 2026, as well as funding to hire 2,500 new air traffic controllers

The FAA is about 3,500 air traffic controllers short of its staffing goals. Many current air traffic controllers are working six days a week, including mandatory overtime.

As part of this budget plan, the FAA would receive $140 million to implement a 3.8% pay raise for air traffic controllers, as well as supervisors and managers who oversee air traffic.

The Trump administration approved a 3.8% pay raise for federal law enforcement personnel, which went into effect at the start of January. Air traffic controllers were not on the Office of Personnel Management’s list of positions receiving a higher pay raise.

The spending bill states that the 3.8% pay raise “shall be implemented for all such employees only to the extent that the administrator determines, in his sole discretion, that improvements in workforce scheduling, staffing utilization, or other operational efficiencies are achieved that contribute to addressing workforce shortfalls and enhancing aviation safety.”

If the FAA administrator determines these conditions, the pay raise would retroactively go into effect for the first pay period in January 2026.

Spending cuts for a smaller federal workforce

Republican appropriators applauded overall spending cuts in the spending bill that funds the Transportation Department, HUD and related agencies.

GOP lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee wrote that the spending deal “codified DOGE recommendations to reduce the federal bureaucracy” of Transportation, HUD and related agencies by 29%.

More specifically, GOP lawmakers said the spending package reflects a 24% reduction in HUD staffing achieved partially through layoffs last year.

Lawmakers said a smaller HUD workforce will save $348 million in salaries and related expenses.

Republican appropriators said the spending deal reflects the Transportation Department “right-sizing” its workforce through a 5% staffing reduction, “all without compromising transportation safety.”

President Donald Trump told reporters at a White House press briefing on Monday that his administration “slashed tremendous numbers of people off the federal payroll” during his first year in office.

OPM data shows over 300,000 federal employees left government last year. That’s about a net loss of 220,000 employees, when accounting for new hires.

Trump said downsizing the federal workforce was necessary, because “they had 10 people for every job,” and that terminated federal employees have moved on to higher-paying jobs in the private sector.

“I don’t feel badly, because they’re getting private sector jobs, and they’re getting sometimes twice as much money, three times as much money,” Trump said. “They’re getting factory jobs, they’re getting much better jobs and much higher pay.”

Higher HHS spending, proposed cuts rejected

The spending bill gives the Department of Health and Human Services $116.8 billion in discretionary spending — a $210 million increase in discretionary spending. By contrast, the Trump administration proposed a nearly 20% cut to HHS discretionary spending this year.

The congressional spending deal rejects the administration’s calls for deep cuts within HHS. The administration sought a 50% spending cut for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Instead, the compromise reached by lawmakers essentially keeps CDC funded at current levels, and includes funding increases for some of its pandemic preparedness programs.

The spending package would give $7.4 billion to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) a $65 million increase over current funding levels.

The bigger budget reflects increased spending to address a rise in opioid overdoses, especially from fentanyl, as well as boosts to substance abuse disorder prevention and mental health services.

Lawmakers rejected a 15% cut to SAMHSA funding proposed by the Trump administration. The spending deal also rejects the administration’s plan to reorganize SAMHSA into the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA), a new office envisioned by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Democrats on the appropriations committees said the spending deal ensures SAMHSA remains its “own, independent agency to help ensure substance use and mental health remain a priority at HHS” and “includes new guardrails to ensure SAMHSA funds are allocated as intended.”

NPR reported last week that HHS briefly terminated $2 billion in addiction and mental health grants, but quickly walked back those cuts.

Education Department budget remains intact

Lawmakers are largely rejecting the administration’s proposal to dismantle the Education Department, and move many of its functions to other federal agencies.

The spending bill gives the department $79 billion in discretionary spending — a roughly flat budget compared to current spending levels.

The Trump administration proposed cutting the Education Department by $12 billion, or about 15% of its current discretionary budget.

The Education Department has already signed six interagency agreements to transfer some of its programs and employees to HHS and the departments of Labor, Interior and State.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon told employees last November that the department is soft-launching plans to reassign its work to other parts of the federal government, before calling on Congress to permanently shutter the agency.

Senate Appropriations Committee Vice President Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said in a statement that “Congress will not abolish the Department of Education, and the people’s representatives will have the final say on how taxpayer dollars get spent.”

Budget boost for Social Security

The Social Security Administration would see a higher budget under this spending plan.

Lawmakers propose giving SSA $15 billion for its administrative budget in fiscal 2026 — a $554 million increase compared to current spending levels.

Lawmakers from both parties agreed that the funding will help the agency improve customer service for the public. Democratic appropriators urged SSA to use these increased funds to resume hiring.

SSA currently has about 50,000 employees in total, according to the latest data from the Office of Personnel Management. The agency lost more than 7,000 employees through voluntary incentives last year. It also relocated many of its employees from its headquarters and regional offices to field offices.

SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano told staff at an all-hands meeting last week that the agency is continuing to hire, according to several employees in attendance. Those employees, however, said the agency still faces a hiring freeze.

Labor Dept. federal contractor watchdog spared from elimination

The spending bill provides $13.7 billion in discretionary spending to the Labor Department — a slight increase compared to its current $13.5 billion discretionary budget.

The department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs would receive a $101 million budget, about a 9% cut to current spending levels. OFCCP ensures federal contractors aren’t discriminating against their employees.

OFCCP, however, would remain largely intact, after the Trump administration proposed major staffing cuts. An earlier funding proposal from House Republicans also proposed fully eliminating OFCCP.

The agency sent layoff notices to 90% of its staff, but rescinded those layoffs last August. Instead of being reinstated to their jobs at OFCCP, the agency said impacted employees would be “reassigned to a new position” at the Labor Department.

Small agencies marked for closure stay open

The spending bill also includes funding for small, independent agencies marked for elimination by an executive order last year.

Lawmakers propose giving the Institute of Museum and Library Services a $292 million budget — a $3 million cut compared to current spending levels.  The spending bill also proposes $3 million in funding for the Interagency Council on Homelessness.

President Trump signed an executive order last March, eliminating these agencies and five others “to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”

A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered a permanent injunction last November, putting the Trump administration’s plans to shutter these small agencies on hold.

House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said in a statement that the funding package “continues Congress’s forceful rejection of extreme cuts to federal programs proposed by the Trump administration.”

“Where the White House attempted to eliminate entire programs, we chose to increase their funding. Where the administration proposed slashing resources, we chose to sustain funding at current levels,” DeLauro said.

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Nearly a year after President Donald Trump directed nearly all federal employees to return to the office full-time, new exceptions to the policy have emerged.

An agency within the Labor Department is allowing some of its employees to work remotely. At the Department of Health and Human Services, an arbitrator is directing one of its agencies to consult with one of its unions over more exemptions to the in-office mandate.

A recent memo from the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) states that some of its employees will be eligible for remote work later this month.

OWCP Deputy Director Douglas Pennington told employees in the memo that, as the agency “vigorously implemented” Trump’s mandate for a full-time return to office last year, “we determined that OWCP will be extremely challenged to cover rent expenses.”

According to the Jan. 6 memo, the Labor Department will allow “100% remote work” for OWCP employees who perform adjudicatory work and perform payment processing work.

Pennington wrote that while most of the agency’s positions benefit from in-person collaboration, “certain OWCP positions do not engage in collaborative interactions, but benefit from focused time free of distractions, and therefore would benefit from remote work and allow a reduction in rent expenses.”

Eligible employees will be able to request full-time remote work starting Jan. 26. If employees are not approved for remote work, they must continue to show up to the office full-time. The memo states that increased telework “is not an option.”

Pennington wrote that allowing a subset of agency employees to work remotely, while having the rest of the workforce in the office full-time, is the “most cost-effective way to accomplish a reduction in rent expenses and continue performing OWCP’s mission.”

Meanwhile, a third-party arbitrator is directing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to meet with the American Federation of Government Employees to discuss exemptions to the administration’s return-to-office mandate.

The arbitrator, Timothy Buckalew, wrote in his opinion that CMS “was not required to negotiate over return to in-person work,” but found that the agency “violated statutory obligations to bargain with the union over the implementation of the work in-person directive.”

Buckalew found that Trump’s return-to-office presidential memorandum (PM) allowed remote work to continue in some limited cases, including medical need.

However, the arbitrator determined CMS has not made any exceptions to its return-to-office policy.

“For reasons not apparent in the record, agency management declined to use the discretion allowed in the PM to make exemptions to the wholesale return to work or to submit the issues of impacts to bargaining as required by law as protected in the PM,” Buckalew wrote.

HHS has recently set new restrictions on telework as a reasonable accommodation for employees with disabilities.

The arbitrator is ordering CMS to meet and negotiate with AFGE over the “effects of the implementation of the directive on work/life of employees.”

According to Buckalew, AFGE Local 192 President Anita Marcel Autrey stated that CMS “unilaterally repudiated” parts of the union’s collective bargaining agreement, and that implementation of the agency’s return-to-office policy was “inconsistent and erratic.”

Autrey told the arbitrator that CMS employees in Chicago and San Francisco have not fully returned to the office because of a lack of office space.

Meanwhile, about 60 financial management employees were granted an exemption to keep working remotely because their work was considered essential to a new budget bill.

About 90% of CMS employees had telework agreements before the second Trump administration.

Donna O’Dowd, director of the workforce compliance division of the CMS Office of Human Capital, told the arbitrator that the presidential memo was a governmentwide rule that “left the agency with no discretion but to follow such directives.”

Federal News Network has reached out to OWCP and CMS for comment.

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The Department of Health and Human Services is rescinding layoffs for employees who recently worked at a workplace safety agency within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last April, HHS sent reduction-in-force notices to about 1,000 employees at the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), which focuses on workplace safety and health standards. Those layoffs targeted about 90% of NIOSH’s staff.

HHS reinstated hundreds of NIOSH employees about a month after sending layoff notices. But according to the American Federation of Government Employees, the department “reversed course completely” on Tuesday, and revoked all layoff notices sent to NIOSH employees.

HHS Press Secretary Emily Hilliard confirmed the department rescinded all RIF notices sent to NIOSH employees. In a statement, she said that “under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, the nation’s critical public health functions remain intact and effective.”

“The Trump Administration is committed to protecting essential services — whether it’s supporting coal miners and firefighters through NIOSH, safeguarding public health through lead prevention, or researching and tracking the most prevalent communicable diseases. Enhancing the health and well-being of all Americans remains our top priority,” Hilliard said.

Last May, after pressure from unions and bipartisan pushback from lawmakers, HHS partially reversed course and reinstated 328 of the 1,000 terminated NIOSH employees. The reinstatements brought back NIOSH employees working in coal mining research programs in Ohio and West Virginia, as well as employees working in the agency’s World Trade Center Health Program, which supports 9/11 first responders.

Micah Niemeier-Walsh, a NIOSH employee and vice president of AFGE Local 3840, said NIOSH employees and unions “have been fighting relentlessly” to full reinstatement of terminated staff.

“We still have a long road ahead of us. We have a lot of rebuilding to do,” she said. “It’s going to take some time to get projects moving again.”

Niemeier-Walsh said laid-off NIOSH employees have been on paid administrative leave for about nine months, preventing hundreds of federal scientists from carrying out their research. Ongoing lawsuits have prevented some agencies from finalizing employee layoffs.

“My coworkers are so dedicated, and they would rather have just been working. They didn’t know, every day, am I going to get terminated tomorrow? It wasn’t nine months of a vacation. It was nine months of limbo and uncertainty,” she said.

In a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last May, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), the chairwoman of the labor, health and human services, education, and related agencies subcommittee, said she was “pleased” with the agency’s partial reversal of the RIF at NIOSH, but called on HHS to reinstate even more NIOSH employees.

“While your action last week was a good step, there are still other divisions within NIOSH with specialized staff who conduct essential, unique work,” Capito told HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during the hearing. “I support the president’s vision to right-size our government, but … I don’t think eliminating NIOSH programs will accomplish that goal.”

Even after the partial reinstatements, NIOSH employees said most of the agency’s programs were still too understaffed to fully function.

NIOSH employees represented by AFGE have met with lawmakers and held rallies, calling for the rest of their colleagues to be brought back on the job.

AFGE National President Everett Kelley said in a statement Wednesday that NIOSH is a “small but vital federal agency” that helps prevent employee injuries, illnesses and deaths at workplaces nationwide.

“The administration’s attempt to lay off nearly every NIOSH worker was shameful and illegal, considering that much of NIOSH’s work is required by law,” Kelley said.

Last October, HHS sent RIF notices to nearly 1,000 employees — including some CDC employees — during the recent government shutdown. But those RIFs were put on hold by a federal judge’s order. The current continuing resolution will block those layoffs at least through Jan. 30.

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What makes brisket bark shimmer in the sun? Beef tallow. What drips from a freshly sliced beef rib held up for the camera? Beef tallow. What gushes forth from the cross section of a brisket being squeezed? Right again—beef tallow. (Actually, please don’t squeeze your brisket.) Some pitmasters pour beef tallow, or rendered beef fat, on their briskets to keep them juicy before wrapping them—that’s what you’re seeing on that soaked butcher paper blanket. It’s the byproduct most of us want with our smoked beef, but these days, it’s become a valuable commodity all its own. Beef tallow is hot now—especially when it’s chilled.Miller’s Smokehouse, in Belton, has been selling beef tallow to customers for about five years. Until recently, it charged $10 for a…

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