u/504Supra

“More reorganizations are in the air at the Department of the Interior under Doug Burgum’s leadership. What good will come out of this latest round of reorganizations, which are supposed to come to the fore in September?
Probably not much.

When historians look back at the unraveling of the Department of the Interior, they’ll probably start with the budget and staffing cuts. They’ll also point to Secretary Burgum’s endless efforts to please President Trump, using hundreds of millions of our tax dollars to fund his vanity projects throughout DC.
They should.

The Trump administration’s deep reductions in funding and staffing have been devastating. National parks are operating with skeletal crews. Scientists are being forced out in droves. Conservation programs are being hollowed out. Entire offices have been left unable to carry out the missions Congress assigned them.
Those cuts deserve every headline they receive.
And so does the rampant corruption and abuse of taxpayers associated with Trump vanity projects throughout DC — from the Reflecting Pool to the ballroom. It is corruption on a scale we have never seen before. But that is only part of the story.

Burgum’s Systematic Weakening of Interior
Away from the television cameras and outside the public spotlight, Burgum is systematically weakening the institutions that make the department effective, accountable, and worthy of the public’s trust. These changes don’t produce dramatic photographs like shuttered visitor centers or overflowing trash cans in national parks. Instead, they quietly erode the guardrails that prevent corruption, protect scientific integrity, and ensure taxpayer dollars are spent based on merit rather than politics.

Take oversight. Every federal agency depends on a strong, independent inspector general (IG) to investigate waste, fraud, abuse, and misconduct — including misconduct by the agency’s own political leadership. Inspectors general are intended to answer to the law, not to political operatives.

Never has the need for a strong and independent IG at Interior been greater than now. And yet,  Burgum has installed Dennis Kirk — a contributor to Project 2025 and former Heritage Foundation official — to the role.
Installing the architect of the ideological blueprint driving the administration’s agenda undermines the independence of the IG’s office, making it political and all but neutering the office’s ability to conduct real and actual oversight. Burgum’s exact goal.
Then there is the administration’s effort to politicize the federal grant process.”

May or may not be Fed employee related, but it’s nice to see this blonde demon ghoul who spews lies no longer in that position.

Things seem a little turbulent at MIB.

“Interior Department staffers were optimistic after Doug Burgum was confirmed to lead the agency in 2025, believing he had strong executive experience as governor of energy-rich North Dakota who led successful tech startups and businesses.

But since he took over at Interior last year, that hope has been replaced by confusion and concern that the agency is poorly run, has devolved into secrecy and has lost thousands of the staff needed to manage the national park systems and millions of acres of public lands.

Some staffers were alarmed that some employees were asked to sign nondisclosure agreements, according to two former staffers. Former employees accuse Burgum of surrounding himself with a toxic leadership team, leading to staffers fleeing. Since Burgum came in, several top officials have left the agency — including the Senate-confirmed legal counsel, the secretary’s former chief of staff and Interior’s top energy official.
Tony Irish, who worked at Interior for more than 20 years, including as associate solicitor for general law until he left last year, said it is “abundantly clear” that Burgum does not solicit or value the opinions of career staffers.

“Burgum appears to combine arrogance with an utter lack of curiosity or humility to seek out the advice of people who have dedicated their professional careers to [Interior’s] objectives,” Irish said. “I think it shows his disdain for the rank and file.”

And officials at Interior decry what they view as a culture of secrecy. Burgum asked colleagues early on about trying to add a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, on the department’s sixth floor even though one exists just three floors below, according to a person who heard the comment. According to three staffers who witnessed it, officials have routinely shredded official documents and use disappearing Signal messages — even for mundane scheduling matters — to avoid communications being preserved, as is required by the Federal Records Act.
“They’re terrified of written records,” said one former official.

These complaints come as Burgum entered into bureaucratic infighting with Washington’s top prosecutor, Jeanine Pirro, over how Interior handled accusations of vandalism in connection with criminal charges centered on renovations to the Reflecting Pool. Pirro, according to The New York Times, laced into Burgum and alleged Interior misrepresented how the pool’s lining was damaged.”

“Senators in both parties say the odds are rising of another government shutdown in September after President Trump demanded that GOP leaders abolish the filibuster or face a spending showdown and another shutdown.  

Trump blindsided GOP leaders on Monday when he warned there could be another shutdown if Senate Republicans don’t abolish the filibuster, which would allow them to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act and spending legislation without any Democratic votes.”

The codes that were pulled are

P0441 – EVAP purge flow incorrect
P0455 – Large EVAP leak
P0300 – Random misfire
P0171 – Bank 1 lean
P0174 – Bank 2 lean

Any ideas?

I tried tightening the gas cap, which was the recommendation for all sources I’ve asked, and no go.

TIA for any input!

“But quarterly federal employee workplace scores generally showed improvements by the end of last year and the beginning of 2026.

Federal employee morale dropped last year, as President Donald Trump downsized and otherwise overhauled the civil service, according to a new data analysis from Gallup. 

“[A]fter the reforms took effect, federal workers experienced declines in employee engagement and job satisfaction, alongside increases in burnout and job-search activity,” the researchers wrote. “These shifts were larger than those observed among comparable state and local government workers — and private sector counterparts — during the same period.”

The analytics firm noted, however, that the data shows there was a “rebound” in some areas by the end of 2025.

For the analysis, researchers compared federal employee worker engagement metrics with those of state and local civil servants. Between 2022 and 2024, the two groups exhibited similar worker satisfaction score trends. 
“By comparing the change in federal employees to the change in state and local employees — rather than looking at federal trends alone — the analysis isolates the portion of the shift that occurred uniquely among federal workers after the reforms,” the researchers explained. 

In the second quarter of 2025, the percentage of “engaged” federal employees decreased by six points more than it did for state and local workers. That gap narrowed to a four-point difference by the first quarter of 2026. 

Likewise, feds were roughly 15 points less likely than their state and local counterparts to report having “high job satisfaction” in the second quarter of 2025. The difference between the two groups never went below 10 points for the remainder of the year. 

Between the second and fourth quarter of 2025, feds went from being about eight to nine points more likely to report “high burnout” compared with state and local workers to approximately four to six points. 

Feds were also around eight points more likely to be searching for a new job in the first quarter of 2025 than state and local civil servants, but “federal job-search behavior [by Q4 2025] was essentially indistinguishable from state and local peers and remained so in Q1 2026.” 

For this analysis, Gallup researchers looked at data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the company’s ongoing workforce survey data of U.S. adults. The statistical models were controlled for characteristics like age, gender and race.

In March, Gallup reported that the percentage of feds who are classified as “thriving” decreased by 10 points between 2024 and 2025. 

The Office of Personnel Management in 2025 did not conduct the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, with officials saying that changes were necessary to the annual poll of the government workforce in order to comply with Trump’s anti-diversity executive orders. 

In response, the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan good government group, developed its own survey of more than 10,000 current feds. It found that all 30 agencies represented in the poll experienced decreases from their 2024 FEVS scores; although, Partnership officials acknowledged that the results are not directly comparable because OPM’s survey includes significantly more respondents.”

“The department fell well short of its goals last year and is failing to keep pace with even that level of hiring.

The Interior Department is struggling to keep up with even the diminished pace of hiring for its busy season it experienced last year, according to several officials and internal documents, raising concerns about its capacity to handle the upcoming surge in both park visitors and wildfires. 

Interior had around 4,200 seasonal employees on board as of early April, according to internal figures obtained by Government Executive, a 1% decrease from the same period in 2025 and down around 14% from the same period in 2024. As of late March, Interior was tracking 7% behind its 2025 seasonal hiring figures. 
The department brings on temporary staff each year to handle the surge of tourists who visit National Parks, as well as federal monuments, historical sites, wildlife refuges and other federal lands, as well as to support the response to wildfire season. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said last year the National Park Service alone would hire 7,700 seasonal staff—in part to offset dramatic decreases in the agency’s permanent workforce—but internal data show the agency peaked at around 5,150 temporary workers, or 33% short of its target. 

Interior has shed around 11,000 permanent employees, or 17% of its workforce, since January 2025, while NPS has reduced its rolls by around 4,000 workers, or 22%. It last month offered another incentive for a large swath of its workforce to leave the department. 
While seasonal hiring typically ramps up significantly in May and June, the department has already fallen behind last year’s pace and employees say it no longer has the infrastructure to execute widespread onboarding as quickly as it typically does. Interior has lost around 18% of its human resources staff, which several current and former employees said has diminished its capacity to move seasonal hires through the system. The department lost more than 100 additional HR personnel during last month’s “deferred resignation” offer, according to multiple employees. 

“We don’t have the staff to hire, do backgrounds or even onboard,” one Interior HR official said. 
Internal messages from Interior’s central HR office, obtained by Government Executive, made clear the capacity issues. One such email told staff to expect delays for any hire submitted less than two full pay periods before the requested start date due to processing difficulties, including with security clearances. Some hires with offers in hand are having their onboardings pushed into June, a slower turnaround than the seasonal staff typically experience. 
“Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work through these backlogs,” the email read. 
Another message implored staff to stop seeking updates on hired individuals as it was further slowing down the process. 

“We understand that parks are eager to onboard their seasonal staff and recognize the importance of getting teams in place quickly,” the email read. “Please know that both the personnel security team and our processing team are committed to supporting this effort and are working as quickly as possible to facilitate the onboarding process.” 

Multiple employees also said recruiting has dried up due to a more negative perception of working for the department and the government in general. They cited the staff reduction efforts—particularly those focused on new hires at the beginning of President Trump’s second term—budget cuts and a snafu in paying seasonal staff during last year’s shutdown as a deterrent to potential applicants. 

“We are also struggling to fill the funded seasonal vacancies we do have,” an HR staffer said. “People just don’t want to work for the government after seeing everything that happened last year.” 
The first official noted the new questions on most federal job applications asking potential hires to opine on their preferred Trump administration policies has also discouraged individuals from seeking the jobs. 
“The political questions gross out a lot of applicants, so we aren’t even getting many,” the official said. 
Despite the setbacks, Burgum told the House Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday that Interior was on schedule for its seasonal hire. He added NPS had hired “thousands and thousands” of employees and that figure would grow if Congress reauthorizes the Great American Outdoors Act Trump originally signed into law in 2020. 

“We’re staffing up,” Burgum said. “And hiring is going really well this year across parks and across wildland fire.” Interior employees took issue with that characterization, with one official simply responding “LOL.” The employees noted they expect a particularly busy summer this year as the nation celebrates its 250th birthday. 

“It’s going to be a s***show,” one of the HR officials said. 

In a statement, an Interior spokesperson focused only on wildland firefighting personnel and said it would meet the same level of hires — around 5,700 — this year as it brought on in 2025. It also castigated its employees for leaking information to the press instead of focusing on their other responsibilities. 

"At a time when communities are preparing for wildfire season, the priority should be operational readiness and mission execution, not anonymous political sniping," the spokesperson said. "Americans expect wildland fire personnel to be focused on readiness and response, not internal political distractions."

Other employees noted the significant reductions in permanent staff have made it nearly impossible for even a robust seasonal hiring spree to fill the gaps. An employee based in a National Park in the Intermountain Region said his park is down to one permanent custodian, has no rangers to oversee trails and roads, various chief positions are vacant and half of maintenance roles are unfilled. 

“[We are] quite literally fucked,” the employee said. “We were unable to hire as many seasonals as there were positions.” 
Interior has shifted thousands of employees working in functions like IT, contracting and HR away from individual bureaus like NPS to instead consolidate them within Burgum’s office. It is also moving firefighters out of the bureaus and into a newly stood up U.S. Wildland Fire Service. That new agency is gearing up for peak fire season in the coming months, though a reduction in the number of seasonal hires could lead to a diminished cadre of staff with “red cards.” Those employees hold certifications for firefighting duties and deploy as needed to wildfires.  

Jayson O’Neill, a spokesperson for Save Our Parks, said seasonal staff who typically help visitors staying at campground check in and assist people looking to hike backcountry areas get permits are not present to fulfill those duties. He added that rangers are being deployed to collect entrance fees, filling what would normally be a seasonal job.

“That means that ranger is not out there when they are needed,” O’Neill said. “Rangers aren’t able to protect people because they’re not there.”

This is great awesome. Something all of us have wanted for years!

Very AI heavy undertone.

You can tell asshat is just itching to replace all of us as quickly as possible.

It’s obviously not going to happen, but I wish someone would ask him the tough questions up on the stage.