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For Immediate Release
March, 03 2025, 11:28am EDT
Contact:
Brett Hartl, bhartl@biologicaldiversity.org
Lawsuit Seeks to Prevent DOGE, Musk From Gutting U.S. Environmental Agencies
The Center Biological Diversity sued five cabinet-level agencies today seeking to stop the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and its DOGE teams from taking further actions against multiple environmental agencies until each team fully complies with the Federal Advisory Committee Act. This is the first lawsuit challenging DOGE’s efforts to eviscerate the agencies charged with protecting the environment, natural resources and wildlife.
Today’s lawsuit aims to protect the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service within the Department of the Interior; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration within the Department of Commerce; the Environmental Protection Agency; the Forest Service and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service within the Department of Agriculture; and the Federal Aviation Administration within the Department of Transportation.
“Elon Musk and his hacker minions are tearing apart the federal agencies that protect our public lands, keep our air and water clean, and conserve our most cherished wildlife. The public has every right to know why they’re waging this cruel war on our environment,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center. “Musk has shown that he can and will destroy a federal agency in a single weekend. If his deranged antics are allowed to continue, we might never be able to fix the damage to America’s environment.”
President Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency requires each federal agency to implement so-called DOGE teams. Because these teams likely include a mix of full-time, part-time, volunteer and special government employees (the designation given to Musk) they must comply with the Federal Advisory Committee Act. To date, no agency has even announced its intention to comply with this important transparency law, which applies to advisory committees established by the president.
Since establishing DOGE, Musk and a small number of people have unlawfully dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, unilaterally terminated federal contracts to further the right-wing cultural agenda, attempted to obtain personal data on virtually every person in the country, and driven the mass firing of thousands of federal workers.
Staffing reductions already implemented by Musk and DOGE have cut approximately 2,300 federal probationary workers from the Interior Department, including 1,000 National Park Service employees, 800 Bureau of Land Management employees and 400 Fish and Wildlife Service employees, roughly 4% of the department’s entire staff. Another 3,400 employees were terminated from the Forest Service and at least 390 employees were laid off at the Environmental Protection Agency.
Today’s lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
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