Interior Secretary Doug Burgum signed an order in April last year to drastically centralize and consolidate administrative personnel under the Office of the Secretary, moving nearly 5,500 employees from across Interior’s component agencies. According to an Inside Climate News analysis of federal workforce data, almost 1,800 workers have left Burgum’s office since the reorganization, with the vast majority opting to retire or quit.
Interior staff who were part of the reorganization and later left the agency say they encountered a hostile, inefficient work culture that was designed to push people out. “Their goal was to make my life a living hell,” said Adam King, a former grant management specialist at the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSMRE) who took a deferred resignation. “I left because of this administration,” King said. “What they’ve done to these agencies will take talented people decades to undo.”
“They’re sucking the soul out of the agencies and they’re doing it on purpose,” said Tim Whitehouse, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “This is part of the effort by Secretary Burgum—the buck stops with him—to deconstruct his agency by creating trauma,” he added. In the year since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, the Interior department has lost 11,000 employees, more than 17 percent of its total workforce.
Quick hits
Former Interior staff describe hostile workplace designed to push them out
Steve Pearce promises protections, critics cite history of attempts to sell public land
Apache women seek court invention as federal land that includes Oak Flat is turned over to copper mine
Which displays get scrapped at America’s national parks? It looks like anyone’s guess
Small Navajo community confronts a 110-year expansion of a coal mine
Trump officials weigh plan to stop offshore wind farms
Alaska plans first new coal power plant since 2013
Legislation at heart of new Oregon forest conflict
Quote of the day
More importantly, our legislators and governor listened. They recognized that public lands matter to us, and we value keeping them public because they are woven into the Wyoming way of life and the freedoms we enjoy.”
—Ellen & Steve Bechtel, Casper, Wyoming residents and business owners, WyoFile
Picture This
Each March, mushers and sled dogs prepare to travel one of Alaska’s most historic winter routes during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
The trail itself isn’t permanent. It takes shape each winter.
The depth, density, and timing of snowpack determine when a winter trail can safely take shape across public lands, including sections managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Small shifts in temperature can mean thinner snow at lower elevations or earlier melt in key sections.
In fact, low snow has forced the Iditarod to move its starting location in 2003, 2015, 2017, and again in 2025.
USGS scientists track snow conditions from satellites and in the field to better understand how Alaska’s winter landscape changes from year to year.
By race day, winter has already built the trail across Alaska’s public lands.
📷: Landsat 9 image of Anchorage, Alaska, captured November 20, 2021.
Featured image: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in the Secretary’s office in Washington, D.C. Source: DOI Flickr.