Interior halts employee spending and travel

The Interior Department has paused spending and travel for employees — a move that could potentially hinder scientific work at the agency.

An email viewed by The Hill shows that spending limits on employee purchase cards have been reduced to $1 — meaning that staffers can no longer use these cards make purchases of equipment or to pay to submit scientific research to journals.

Other emails also seen by The Hill show that, at least for the time being, all travel has been paused until the department updates its approval process. Employees who were slated to travel to conferences have been told to cancel their travel.

It’s not clear how long the travel moratorium will remain in place.

A spokesperson for the Interior Department declined to comment.

The department has a broad mandate, overseeing energy production on public lands and offshore, species conservation, tribal affairs and more. Its work includes a mix of regulation, scientific research and handling permits for energy projects.

Jacob Malcom, a former Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who more recently served in multiple leadership roles at Interior, noted that halting both purchases and travel could be a major imposition for the department's operations.

“If you need tools, equipment out in the field, for things, this all has to be purchased in some way,” said Malcom, who served as a career official leading the department’s Office of Policy Analysis during the Biden administration. He most recently served as the department’s acting deputy assistant secretary, but resigned amid the department's decision to fire thousands of recent hires.

“If you need it in order to operate and carry out your mission, then it almost certainly goes through a purchase card,” he added, noting that these cards are also used for office supplies like paper and batteries for smoke detectors.

Meanwhile, Malcom said that the travel limits could also inhibit a number of functions at the department.

“For scientists being able to communicate with and present to and develop ideas across the scientific community, this is a huge deal, for example, for a science agency like [the U.S. Geological Survey],” he said. “If they can’t travel then they can’t really carry out science the way they’re supposed to.”

“Being able to go to conferences and exchange information is really critical to advancing the mission and serving people,” he added.

He also noted that travel can also be essential for other roles — like in the Office of Subsistence Management, which governs opportunities for Alaska natives and other rural people to hunt and fish on federal lands and nearby waters.

“They need to be going out into communities. They're doing that right now to meet with subsistence users, to figure out, ‘how are those wildlife and fish populations managed?’” he said.

He noted that the people who are helped by that office “live out there off the resources of the land. This is survival.”

He also raised concerns about whether employees would be able to travel for disaster response.

The moves come as President Trump and Elon Musk seek to reshape the government more broadly, including by firing thousands of workers and making sweeping funding cuts. Interior alone fired 2,300 employees earlier this month after the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) directed agencies to cut nearly all probationary staffers, or those who started in their roles relatively recently.

Trump and Musk have characterized their efforts as a way to root out government waste, but critics have said that their actions have been disruptive for staffers and programs across the federal government.

Interior staff have also been instructed to carry out this past weekend’s directive from OPM, according to an email that was viewed by The Hill.

They are required to email OPM listing five bullet points detailing what they accomplished over the past week and will also have to do so weekly.

OPM sent an email over the weekend instructing all federal employees to detail what they did over the past week. Since that time, the agency sent out further guidance saying that it was up to agency heads whether to “exclude personnel from this expectation.”

While Interior employees have been told they have to follow the directive, other parts of the government, including the departments of State and Defense, as well as the FBI, have directed their employees not to respond.

Laura Daniel-Davis, who was the Interior Department’s acting No. 2 during the Biden administration, described the directive as “absurd and a waste of time.”

“[It’s] absurd that they would actually be providing these reports to a government entity that's not related to the mission of the department," she said.

Topics

DOGE Puts $1 Spending Limit on Government Employee Credit Cards

The restrictions are already in place at the General Services Administration along with several other agencies. Soon they’ll roll out to most of the federal government, sources say.
Wired - 6d
Firings Expand at Interior Department With Purge of Probationary Workers

More than 2,000 workers at the Interior Department were fired in recent days, according to counts from workers groups and those familiar with the cuts, as probationary workers were targeted across ...
The New York Times - Feb. 19
Trump Urged to Halt Firings at the FAA

After a string of deadly plane crashes, lawmakers and union members are urging the president to protect the transportation department from further personnel cuts.
The New York Times - 6d
Hegseth travels to Guantanamo Bay

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will inspect the facilities at Guantanamo Bay where the Trump administration hopes to house migrants deported from the U.S. CBS News senior national security ...
CBS News - 1d
Donald Trump halting anti-bribery laws will harm, not help US companies

President’s order means a race to the bottom rigged against US, argues anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International. Bribery is not a victimless crime. Stories listing the amount paid or the ...
The Guardian - 5d
Trump halts medical research funding in apparent violation of judge’s order

Health department orders NIH to hold Federal Register submissions – critical step in process for funding studies. The Trump administration has blocked a crucial step in the National Institutes of ...
The Guardian - 3d
DR Congo stops cobalt exports in attempt to halt sliding prices

World’s top producer of metal used in electric vehicle batteries moves to counteract ‘overabundance of supply’
Financial Times - 2d
Christianity’s Decline in U.S. Appears to Have Halted, Major Study Shows

Young people contributed to the shift. “If you’re a young white male these days and you think of yourself as conservative, then being religious is a part of that.”
The New York Times - 7h
Street Style Look of the Week: Travel Outfits

Vacationers’ polished attire recalled the glamour of early jet-age travel.
The New York Times - Feb. 18