April 24, 2025 3:40 a.m.

This week, U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies and Maine U.S. Representative Chellie Pingree, Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, issued a statement on the Trump Administration’s move to significantly reorganize the Department of the Interior.

The lawmakers wrote, “It is unacceptable for the Administration to unilaterally overhaul agency structure and funding through a hasty, mid-year shuffle – especially when the fiscal year 2025 Appropriations bill clearly maintains the Department’s longstanding operations and organization”.

Merkley and Pingree said, “The services it seeks to move from each individual bureau to the department level – like hiring seasonal park rangers, engaging with communities around specific public lands, conducting fair and cost-effective bidding for major construction projects, and overseeing grants tied to program-specific eligibilities – form the operational backbone of each bureau and reflect their distinct missions and authorities. Making such broad-sweeping changes without conducting detailed organizational research, evaluating consequences, planning a transition, or consulting Congress is reckless”.

The statement concluded, “We demand that the Department of the Interior halt implementation of this large-scale reorganization and propose such changes in the President’s budget request for full examination and final determination by Congress”.