Washington, D.C. — Despite a professed dedication to cutting waste and inefficiency, a new column from the Center for American Progress finds that the Trump administration has turned a blind eye to an exceptionally wasteful area of the federal government: the oil and gas program.
Now, the Department of the Interior has designated employees responsible for permitting and leasing of oil, gas, and coal as “essential” during the government shutdown, preventing them from being furloughed and ensuring that this waste will continue. The Government Accountability Office has long cited the federal oil and gas program as a breeding ground for waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement.
The Trump administration is not just failing to address these documented inefficiencies, it is actually magnifying waste, fraud, and abuse through a variety of rollbacks and regulations and squandering millions of taxpayer dollars as a result. In the eight months since Trump took office, the administration has taken at least a dozen actions that ignore or heighten waste, inefficiency, speculation, and abuse in the oil and gas sector.
“While most of America’s parks and public lands are facing vast understaffing and layoffs during the shutdown, oil and gas will continue to proceed with business as usual,” said Jenny Rowland-Shea, director of public lands at CAP and co-author of the paper. “That means a continuation of rampant and documented waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal oil and gas program.”
The administration has ignored corruption and conflicts of interest within the oil and gas industry, scaled up industry handouts, shifted the burden of industry costs onto taxpayers, and removed mechanisms for enforcement and oversight. Rather than cutting down on waste, the administration has increased opportunities for the industry to profit—even through potentially corrupt and illegal means—at the expense of everyday people.
Read the analysis: “The Trump Administration Is Allowing Waste, Fraud, and Abuse To Fester in the Federal Oil and Gas Program” by Sophie Conroy and Jenny Rowland-Shea
For more information, or to speak with an expert, please contact Sam Hananel at [email protected].