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ANN KENEVAN on February 24, 2025

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ANN KENEVAN

DELETE, DELETE, DELETE, DELETE 75 Agencies Listed on the Federal Register No Longer Exist The Trump Administration was only a few minutes old when it was hit with three lawsuits, all concerning the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The suits were filed before the inauguration ceremony ha... View MoreDELETE, DELETE, DELETE, DELETE 75 Agencies Listed on the Federal Register No Longer Exist The Trump Administration was only a few minutes old when it was hit with three lawsuits, all concerning the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The suits were filed before the inauguration ceremony had even concluded and President Trump had signed an executive order establishing DOGE. The suits argue DOGE doesn’t comply with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), which requires advisory committees to meet certain requirements, like politically balanced membership, publicly accessible meetings, and a public charter. A total of seventy-five agencies listed in the Federal Register are defunct, many for decades! Thirty-nine of those agencies were temporary commissions, created to study a single issue and produce a report, usually after the end of a year. The Commission on the Future of the United States Aerospace Industry and Twenty-First Century Workforce Commission are two such examples. Twelve agencies have closed but have had their duties merged with another agency, for example, the Valles Caldera Trust and the Oklahoma City National Memorial Trust, once separate entities, are now integrated into the National Park Service. More rarely, agencies were terminated by an act of Congress or administrative reshuffling. So went the National Institute for Literacy and the Resolution Trust Corporation. Record keeping within the Federal Register, which is supposed to be the definitive guide to government policy, is shockingly bad. Not only are agencies listed that are long-defunct, but records of those agencies are often not updated, so members of the public must conduct deep research to ascertain the composition of their own government. Just as different parts of government will report different total personnel counts or payroll figures, different parts of the federal government don’t have a shared understanding of how many agencies are active, what they’re currently named, and what they’re doing, if anything. If the federal government were a book, there’s no usable table of contents for the average American to find what they’re seeking. As Open the Books researchers dutifully sort through the records to determine which agencies still exist and how much those that do are costing the American taxpayers, it’s become clear there’s an opportunity to untangle this web in a public database. By cataloguing every federal agency, it will create a clearer picture of the government as it stands. Where are the ghost agencies that can be deleted? Where is there duplication? Bloat? For DOGE to be as effective as possible, it’s necessary to have the best possible understanding of the status quo as of 2024. Open the Books will periodically release a list of agencies our auditors have studied, charting their growth, expense and activity over time. Are taxpayers getting their money’s worth? Are they getting anything at all? Regardless of your affiliation, it’s in everyone’s interest to open the books together and find out. LIST #1: DELETE THE OBSOLETE These are the 75 agencies we identified on the Federal Register that are defunct. If we can’t keep tabs of these in DC’s official record book, how will we ever get to a leaner, more effective government? https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/delete-delete-delete-delete

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DELETE, DELETE, DELETE, DELETE openthebooks.substack.com

1 February 24, 2025

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2 February 24, 2025