March, 03 2025, 11:28am EDT
For Immediate Release
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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Top Economist Has Winning Idea for Trump's Trade War: Tariffs for US Oligarchs
"If it's a trade war Trump wants, consumers in Mexico, Canada, Europe, and beyond should unite to ensure that Musk and his fellow oligarchs feel the cost."
Mar 03, 2025
As U.S. President Donald Trump weighed 25% tariffs he plans to impose on Canada and Mexico on Monday, with the White House sending mixed messages in recent days about when the levies will go into effect, a top progressive economist has proposed foreign countries should respond to "the trade war Trump seems determined to stoke" by targeting the "Achilles heel" embedded in the Trump administration.
"Mexico, Canada, and Europe have leverage," wrote Gabriel Zucman, director of the E.U. Tax Observatory, in a column Friday, pointing to the country's "highly internationalized oligarchy: a small group of ultra-wealthy individuals whose fortunes depend on access to global markets."
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick indicated Monday morning that Trump has yet to decide whether tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports—including produce, lumber, vehicles, and electronics—will go forward just after midnight on Tuesday as previously planned; the president has also recently said the tariffs could be delayed until April 2.
But Zucman wrote that whenever the policy does enter force, Canada, Mexico, and any other countries affected "should retaliate by taxing U.S. oligarchs."
Powerful business owners like Tesla CEO Elon Musk—now also spearheading Trump's gutting of federal agencies through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg all rely on markets outside of the U.S. to enrich their companies, which "gives foreign governments influence," Zucman continued.
"If Tesla wants to sell cars in Canada and Mexico, Elon Musk—Tesla's primary shareholder—should be required to pay taxes in those jurisdictions," he wrote. "Of course, this strategy is explicitly extraterritorial, since it applies tax obligations on foreign actors in exchange for access to local markets. But rather than fearing extraterritoriality, countries should embrace it as a tool for enforcing minimum standards, curbing inequality, preventing tax evasion, and promoting sustainability."
Tariffs on oligarchs could fight against Trump's attacks on environmental regulations, push for tax giveaways to billionaires at the cost of crucial public services, and advocacy for re-segregating workplaces, suggested Zucman, while shifting "the economic conflict from a battle between countries—which fuels nationalist tensions and economic retaliation—to one between consumers and oligarchs."
Countries could also "collect taxes that multinationals have dodged elsewhere, gradually eroding the appeal of tax competition" and triggering a "virtuous cycle," added the economist, who focuses on wealth inequality and international tax policy.
With tariffs on oligarchs in place, he said, firms would no longer be incentivized to move to countries that hand out corporate tax breaks because their savings would be offset by the tariffs levied by countries with large markets.
Governments have been accused in taking part in a "race to the bottom" as they try to attract large multinational companies run by some of the richest people in the world, with huge tax breaks that weaken "national safety nets, [kill] jobs by subsidising capital at the expense of labor, [allow] elites to escape the rule of law, and [reduce] productivity and economic growth," as the Tax Justice Network wrote in a 2020 report.
With tariffs for oligarchs, said Zucman "the race to the bottom would soon be replaced by a race to the top."
While the first weeks of Trump's second term in the White House have raised fears over a looming trade war, attacks on immigrants and transgender Americans, mass firings of federal workers, and the United States' withdrawal from international agreements and organizations, Zucman said the Trump presidency "also presents an opportunity."
"This is a moment to rethink international economic relations, calmly but radically," wrote Zucman. "The best response is a new global economic framework that neutralizes tax competition, fights inequality, and protects our planet. Under such a framework, importing countries would enforce tax justice beyond their borders, ensuring that multinational corporations and their billionaire owners pay their fair share."
"If it's a trade war Trump wants," he said, "consumers in Mexico, Canada, Europe, and beyond should unite to ensure that Musk and his fellow oligarchs feel the cost."
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Watchdog Launches Probe of Trump-Musk Use of AI for Mass Firings of Federal Workers
"The American people deserve to know what is going on—including if and how artificial intelligence is being used to reshape the departments and agencies people rely on daily."
Mar 03, 2025
A watchdog organization on Monday launched a public records probe to determine the extent to which the Trump administration and its billionaire wrecking ball, Elon Musk, are using artificial intelligence as part of their lawless effort to purge the federal workforce.
"The American people deserve to know what is going on—including if and how artificial intelligence is being used to reshape the departments and agencies people rely on daily," said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, the group behind the new investigation.
"We will continue to use every tool at our disposal to force the Trump-Vance administration to fulfill its obligation to the public and to our system of laws," Perryman added.
The probe comes days after NBC Newsreported that federal workers' responses to Musk's email ultimatum were "expected to be fed into an artificial intelligence system to determine whether those jobs are necessary."
"The information will go into an LLM (Large Language Model), an advanced AI system that looks at huge amounts of text data to understand, generate and process human language," the news outlet reported, citing unnamed sources. "The AI system will determine whether someone's work is mission-critical or not."
Additionally, according to The Washington Post, Musk lieutenants "have fed sensitive data from across the Education Department into artificial intelligence software."
"For an administration that claimed it wanted to bring about transparency and efficiency in government, the Trump-Vance administration's purge of public servants and sloppy processes have done just the opposite."
Democracy Forward said Monday that it would use Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests in an attempt to shine light on the administration's reliance on AI for personnel decisions. The Trump Justice Department argued in a court filing last week that the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is exempt from public records requests—a claim that experts have rejected and condemned as an attempt to skirt oversight.
"For an administration that claimed it wanted to bring about transparency and efficiency in government, the Trump-Vance administration's purge of public servants and sloppy processes have done just the opposite," Perryman said Monday. "DOGE and this administration are operating in a shroud of secrecy, and their 'govern by chaos' tactics have only made government less efficient and caused disruptions to our safety and security."
Democracy Forward said its new FOIA requests were sent to DOGE as well as the Office of Personnel Management, the State Department, the Education Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the General Services Administration, among other agencies.
Wiredreported last month that "Thomas Shedd, the recently appointed Technology Transformation Services director and Elon Musk ally, told General Services Administration workers that the agency's new administrator is pursuing an 'AI-first strategy.'"
"Shedd provided a handful of examples of projects GSA Acting Administrator Stephen Ehikian is looking to prioritize, including the development of 'AI coding agents' that would be made available for all agencies," Wired added. "Shedd made it clear that he believes much of the work at [Technology Transformation Services] and the broader government, particularly around finance tasks, could be automated.
Geoffrey Fowler, the Post's technology columnist, noted Monday that "lots of recent evidence shows that relying on automation alone to make critical decisions can lead to big government mistakes."
"Just ask New York City, where last year a government AI chatbot advised businesses to break the law," Fowler wrote. "Or Australia, where a deeply flawed algorithm called Robodebt created the opposite of efficiency: the government had to settle for more than a billion dollars with citizens for wrongly reclaiming benefits."
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House Dems Push Trump AG for Answers on 'Illegal Quid Pro Quo' With Eric Adams
"The DOJ has strayed far from its principles of equal justice under the law by dismissing a serious criminal public corruption matter in exchange for assistance with the White House's immigration priorities."
Mar 03, 2025
Senior House Democrats on Monday demanded that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi hand over information about the Trump administration's "lawless order that federal prosecutors move to dismiss the public corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams as part of a corrupt bargain to buy the mayor's obedience in immigration enforcement."
Calling on Bondi to "immediately end the cover-ups and retaliations within the Department of Justice (DOJ)," House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and House Oversight Subcommittee Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) wrote in a letter to the attorney general:
Last month, troubling reports emerged about the Trump administration's demand that federal prosecutors move to dismiss the serious public corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams as part of a blatant and illegal quid pro quo to secure the mayor's loyal assistance in executing the Trump administration's mass arrest and deportation policies. Not only did the Department of Justice attempt to pressure career prosecutors into carrying out this illegal quid pro quo, it appears that acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove was personally engaged in a cover-up by destroying evidence and retaliating against career prosecutors who refused to follow his illegal and unethical orders.
Adams had faced five federal felony charges including alleged wire fraud, bribery, and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. According to a September 2024 indictment, the Democrat "sought and accepted improper valuable benefits, such as luxury international travel, including from wealthy foreign businesspeople and at least one Turkish government official seeking to gain influence over him" as it became clear in 2021 that he would be elected.
On February 14, Trump's DOJ formally moved to drop the charges against Adams without prejudice, meaning they could be brought again. This prompted the resignation of seven federal prosecutors, and, on February 17, four of Adams' eight deputy mayors.
Raskin's office said Monday that federal prosecutors' resignation letters, "including those by Danielle Sassoon, a staunch conservative, former law clerk to [U.S. Supreme Court] Justice Antonin Scalia, and Trump's interim United States attorney for [the Southern District of New York], and Hagan Scotten, a former law clerk to both [Supreme Court] Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Chief Justice John Roberts, revealed a stunning account of a corrupt bargain the DOJ struck with Mayor Adams, as well as an attempted cover-up."
Sassoon described a January 31 meeting she and colleagues attended with Bove at which "Adams' attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with the [DOJ's] enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed," and added that Bove "admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting's conclusion."
Subsequently, Adams reportedly told New York City officials to refrain from criticizing Trump. After meeting with Trump "border czar" Tom Homan, Adams on February 13 announced an executive order to allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to operate at Rikers Island, New York City's largest jail, for the first time in decades.
The following day Adams and Homan appeared together on Fox News. Although the two men were seen laughing it up, Homan said that if the mayor didn't "come through" for the Trump administration, "we won't be sitting on this couch, I'll be in his office, up his butt, saying, where the hell is the agreement we came to?"
Thinly veiled Homan warning to Adams: “If he doesn’t come through … I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, Where the hell is the agreement we came to” pic.twitter.com/Pq0msJXZGb
— Emily Ngo (@emilyngo) February 14, 2025
Raskin and Crockett are seeking all notes related to the January 31 meeting, all communications between the White House and DOJ regarding the Adams case, and other information.
"For our justice system to function, 'legal judgments of the Department of Justice must be impartial and insulated from political influence,'" the lawmakers asserted. "As Ms. Sassoon said in her letter, our system depends on prosecutors pursuing justice 'without favor to the wealthy or those who occupy important public office.' Here, the DOJ has strayed far from its principles of equal justice under the law by dismissing a serious criminal public corruption matter in exchange for assistance with the White House's immigration priorities."
"Unfortunately, this is yet another example of the Trump DOJ allowing criminals to go free—whether they assaulted police officers, sold drugs to the community, or are corrupt politicians—as long as the criminals pledge loyalty to President Trump," the pair added.
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