FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
Contact:
Chandra Rosenthal (303) 898-0798 crosenthal@peer.org
Sudden Freeze on Interior Department Spending
Parks, Refuges, and Range in Chaos After Spending Authority Reduced to $1
Washington, DC — In abrupt, drastic restrictions, the Trump administration has suspended normal spending authority and travel approvals across the entire U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees national parks, wildlife refuges, memorials, and rangelands throughout the country, according to documents posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Under the new edicts, most government purchase cards cannot be used for expenses of more than one dollar, rendering them essentially useless.
Under the new limits, which took effect last week on February 25th, for all Interior units –
- The spending threshold for all purchases is now limited to $1;
- Future purchase authority has been confined at the National Park Service to one person for each of the regions which consists of large administrative units that often cover an entire state or several states; and
- In the case of the Bureau of Land Management, only two purchasers at headquarters are designated as the “primary purchases” for the entire agency.
“It looks like the Trump administration is monkeywrenching government by needlessly disrupting even basic operations,” stated Rocky Mountain PEER Director Chandra Rosenthal. “The individual Interior agencies, such as the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management, have been taken by surprise and are themselves grasping for additional guidance.”
The new restrictions make exceptions for expenditures that “support national security, public safety, and immigration enforcement.” However, these exceptions do not appear to cover purchases for maintenance and repair, for example, unless they are imminently life-threatening.
Moreover, the decision-making authority about even the most minor purchases has been removed from individual parks, refuges, and field offices and elevated to offices hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of miles away. In the interim, the only certainty appears to be uncertainty, as managers scramble for clarification as to how to apply these new rules on a day-to-day basis.
“These restrictions represent the worst, most unproductive form of micromanagement,” added Rosenthal, noting that the purpose of these restrictions has yet to be revealed. “For a bunch that talks incessantly about government efficiency, the Trump team appears utterly unclear on the concept.”
These new rules compound the uncertainty in agencies that are already under orders to fire thousands of employees and develop plans for significant layoffs, among other jarring changes.
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