- Trump’s new executive order expands DOGE’s power across federal agencies.
- The order lists out what tasks DOGE Team Leads are expected to accomplish as they embed in federal agencies.
- The tasks include tracking federal staffers’ travel requests and reporting contract and grant payments.
President Donald Trump details in a new executive order just how much power DOGE staff will have as they embed in federal agencies to tighten the reins of government spending.
The new order, issued on Wednesday, lists the duties and responsibilities that officials from DOGE will have at the federal agencies they’re assigned to.
It expands on Trump’s executive order from his first day in office that established the DOGE task force and mandated that every federal agency set up a DOGE team. That team, the order said, should typically include one DOGE Team Lead, one engineer, one human resources specialist, and one attorney, who will all work with the head of their agency to implement Trump’s cost-cutting agenda.
Wednesday’s order asks agency heads to work with their assigned DOGE Team Lead to accomplish the following tasks:
- Build out a system to track “every payment” related to the agency’s contracts and grants, and record a “written justification for each payment.”
- Review all the agency’s current contracts and grants with a goal to terminate or modify them “where appropriate” to reduce or reallocate spending. Contracts and grants to educational institutions and foreign entities should be prioritized.
- Conduct a review of the agency’s contracting policies, procedures, and personnel.
- Issue guidance on signing new contracts or modifying existing contracts to “promote government efficiency” and the policies of the Trump administration.
- The DOGE Team lead at each agency will give a monthly report to the DOGE Administrator detailing the agency’s contracting activities.
- Set up a system to track agency employees’ travel requests that will require written justification for non-essential travel and travel to conferences. The DOGE Team Lead will then report all travel justifications to the DOGE Administrator every month.
- Freeze all employee credit card activity for the next 30 days, except for charges related to “disaster relief or natural disaster response benefits or operations or other critical services.”
- Create an inventory of the agency’s federal property and submit a plan to get rid of property that is “no longer needed.”
There are a few exceptions to the order, which does not apply to law enforcement officers, US Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Department of Homeland Security, or the Uniformed Services. Classified information, as well as contracts or grants related to the enforcement of federal criminal or immigration law, are also excluded. Agency heads can submit additional requests for exemption, according to the order.
The order is part of Trump’s larger agenda to reduce the federal workforce and cut government spending across the board — an endeavor that, with the help of SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has caused mass chaos and confusion among federal staffers, and spawned over 85 lawsuits challenging his and DOGE’s authority.
While Musk is largely seen as the leader of DOGE, the White House said Wednesday that task force’s official administrator, who will oversee much of the above tasks, is Amy Gleason.
The order, which had been posted to the White House webpage that shares Trump’s executive orders, was removed by Thursday afternoon.
The White House didn’t immediately return a request for comment about the removal.
