Interior Secretary Grants DOGE Official Broad Powers to Reshape Agency

The order is ‘effective immediately’ and allows the official to take ‘all necessary actions,’ Doug Burgum said.

Interior secretary Doug Burgum at the White House in Washington on April 10, 2025. Travis Gillmore/The Epoch Times

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has directed Tyler Hassen, who has been affiliated with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to take “all necessary actions” to optimize functions and trim back the agency.

A former oil executive who is the Interior Department’s assistant for policy, management, and budget, Hassen was seen alongside DOGE leader Elon Musk and several other DOGE staffers in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier last month.

Hassen was told by Burgum in an order issued this past week to “take all necessary actions, including appropriate notifications, to effectuate the appropriate consolidation, unification and optimization of administrative functions within the Department and its Bureaus and Offices.”

That includes “ensuring the appropriate transfer of funds, programs, records, and property, as well as taking required personnel actions, to carry out the consolidation,” the directive stated.

The order was signed on April 17 and uploaded on the Interior Department’s website on April 18, according to page metadata reviewed by The Epoch Times.

Burgum’s directive, which is “effective immediately,” will also delegate “any authority necessary to ensure the uninterrupted delivery of administrative functions during any period of transition required to complete the process.”

“It will remain in effect until the plan outlined above is completed and any resulting changes are incorporated into the Departmental Manual, or until it is amended, superseded, or revoked,” it said.

Before he joined the Trump administration, Hassen had worked for oil field equipment manufacturer Basin Energy.

“We are now reviewing every single contract, every single grant, and when things come to my attention that don’t make sense, I’m bringing them to Secretary (Doug) Burgum,” Hassen told Fox News in March, noting that Burgum is also a ”businessman“ and ”very supportive of DOGE.”

Conservationists accuse Burgum of improperly handing over oversight to DOGE, which is not a Cabinet-level agency within the administration.

“If Doug Burgum doesn’t want this job, he should quit now,” Jennifer Rokala, director of the conservation group Center for Western Priorities, said in a statement on April 18. “Instead, it looks like Burgum plans to sit by the fire eating warm cookies while Elon Musk’s lackeys dismantle our national parks and public lands.”

President Donald Trump created DOGE via an executive order soon after he took office in January to reduce fraud, waste, and abuse. DOGE has faced legal setbacks in some agencies where its staff is embedded, although courts have ruled in favor of the service and the Trump administration.

Musk, who’s CEO of Tesla and the world’s richest person, is a special government employee and has a 130-day limit to work in the administration. Trump earlier this month signaled that Musk would be leaving in “a few months” and noted that he has “a number of companies to run.”

Musk said that his work in the Trump administration is hurting Tesla’s stock. The company has seen a more than 35 percent decrease in its value on the stock market since the start of 2025.

The Epoch Times contacted the Interior Department for additional comment.