Hi Reader,
A “wood chipper for bureaucracy.” This is how Elon Musk has described the Department of Government Efficiency.
Musk kept that promise during his time in government, and DOGE soldiers on with consequences that will continue to unfold in the coming months and years. Drastic cuts in staffing and contracts and swift realignments of policy priorities have thrown federal agencies and their work into disarray.
ProPublica’s investigative newsroom has the power and muscle to cut through the chaos, surface the facts and take stock of the consequences. In recent months, we’ve heard from some of the hundreds of thousands of civil servants who have lost their jobs or are on the verge of doing so, and documented the harm that millions could suffer as a result of the shuttering of aid programs at home and abroad. We’ve covered the working conditions for those who remain in agencies struggling to function with reduced staff and budgets. And we have been doggedly shining a light on the staggering impact that DOGE’s deep and wide-ranging cuts have had on a very specific aspect of the federal government: its collection and sharing of data.
For decades, workers in agencies that many of us have never heard of have been amassing the statistics that undergird decision-making at all levels of government and inform the judgments of business leaders, school administrators and medical providers nationwide. But, in the wake of DOGE’s efforts to eliminate “waste, fraud and abuse,” our reporters are showing how the survival of that data is now in doubt.
Over the last few months we’ve reported how layoffs, cuts and furloughs at the Department of Health and Human Services have gutted the teams responsible for tracking substance abuse, mental health, child welfare and the country’s disconcertingly high rate of maternal mortality. Sweeping job reductions at the Energy Information Administration will curtail reliable data on everything from oil and gas to alternative energy. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has eviscerated the divisions that track accidental deaths and injuries, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Potential funding cuts to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration could gut climate modeling and threaten irreparable harm not only to climate research but to American safety, competitiveness and national security. And the Environmental Protection Agency is planning to stop requiring oil refineries, power plants and other industrial facilities to measure and report their greenhouse gas emissions, making it difficult to know whether any of the policies meant to slow climate change and reduce disaster are effective.
Some of these cuts have been challenged in court, reversed, partially reversed and modified, sometimes more than once. Amid the tumult, the government is losing its capacity to measure how American society is functioning, making it much harder for elected officials or others to gauge the nature and scale of the problems we are facing and the effectiveness of solutions being deployed against them. As one dataset after another falls by the wayside, the nation’s policymakers risk losing the ability to make evidence-based decisions, and the public is losing a critical resource for holding them accountable for their results.
Most of the federal agencies and the White House press office did not respond to our requests for comment about the threat posed to government data by the cuts. An EIA spokesperson said, “We do not make decisions about our data or our analyses with the goal of influencing outcomes or avoiding pushback.” The EPA did not address our questions about the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. Instead, the agency provided an emailed statement affirming the Trump administration’s commitment to “clean air, land, and water for EVERY American.”
Independent, nonprofit journalism is one of the last xxxxxxs of accountability. Here at ProPublica, we have over 150 editorial staffers devoted to cutting through the chaos and surfacing the facts. For nearly two decades, we have exposed abuses of power and betrayals of the public trust, and we have seen how those facts inspire action and, eventually, reform.
We can dig deep into the most powerful people and institutions because we answer to the public. Our supporters make it possible for us to produce the kind of fact-based, investigative journalism that can spur change. Join 80,000 ProPublicans with a gift of any amount, and help guard the guardrails.
Thanks so much,
Megan Martenyi
Proud ProPublican
