The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, recently collaborated with the Trump Administration Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to scrap more diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)-related contracts, saving taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. Over the past several weeks, DOGE has embarked on a mission to uncover waste within the federal government and cut spending.
EPA administration Lee Zeldin took to X last week announcing the news. “
In partnership with @DOGE, I just CANCELLED 9 more wasteful @EPA DEI and Environmental Justice contracts, saving American taxpayers another ~$60 MILLION. I’m just warming up! I have ZERO tolerance for even a penny of your hard-earned tax dollars to be wasted or abused,” Zeldin wrote.
Since stepping back into the Oval Office, President Donald Trump has made it a point to scrap DEI contracts as a primary method of reducing government expenditure. The American Tribune recently reported that DOGE had cut roughly 80 DEI contracts within the Department of Agriculture, cutting approximately $132 million in spending.
Among these contracts was $229,000 allocated for a Brazilian “forest and gender consultant.” According to reports, over 1,000 contracts are still being reviewed. “I welcome DOGE’s efforts at USDA because we know that its work makes us better, stronger, faster, and more efficient. I will expect full access and transparency to DOGE in the days and weeks to come,” Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said. The Tribune reported:
Among the $132 million worth of contracts that were terminated, there was $374,000 for a diversity, equity, and inclusion onboarding specialist, $254,000 for diversity dialogue workshops, $298,000 for international development for historically underrepresented communities, $229,000 for a Brazilian forest and gender consultant, $121,000 for a women and forest carbon initiative mentorship program and $29,000 for a Central American gender assessment consultant.
Furthermore, Zeldin also released a recent video statement explaining how Democrats had supposedly laundered roughly $20 billion in taxpayer dollars to “left-wing NGOs.” Zeldin explained that the money had been clawed back and the case referred to the Department of Justice to handle.
“There will be zero tolerance of any waste and abuse,” Zeldin said. “An extremely disturbing video circulated two months ago featuring a Biden EPA political appointee talking about how they were ‘tossing gold bars off the Titanic’, rushing to get billions of your tax dollars out the door before Inauguration Day, the gold bars were tax dollars, and tossing them off the Titanic meant the Biden administration knew they were wasting it.”
Vowing to seek accountability, he said, “Fortunately, my awesome team at EPA has found the gold bars, shockingly, roughly $20 billion of your tax dollars were parked at an outside financial institution by the Biden EPA. This scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history, and it was purposefully designed to obligate all of the money in a rush job with reduced oversight.”
"*" indicates required fields
“EPA needs to reassume responsibility for all of these funds. We will review every penny that has gone out the door. I will be referring this matter to the Inspector General’s office and will work with the Justice Department as well,” he asserted. “The days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far left activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over.”
Watch Zeldin below:
Featured image credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lee_Zeldin_(53301119463).jpg