As 22 environmental offices in Santa Maria, Temecula, Davis, and elsewhere have been designated for termination, Zeldin has said, “I have ZERO tolerance for even a penny of your hard-earned tax dollars to be wasted or abused.”
The Trump Administration and the Department of Government Efficiency plan to effectively terminate the leases for over 650 federal offices in the country, as part of DOGE’s larger effort to reduce wasteful contract spending and to hopefully save the American people a substantial amount in taxes.
According to the DOGE website, the Musk-led team estimates “~$350M in lease savings” will be had after terminating a total of “7,919,726 square feet” of real estate, displayed on their database, the ‘Wall of Receipts’.
Over a month ago, Musk sent an email en masse to thousands of in-probation workers, including more than 1,100 from the Environmental Protection Agency, notifying recipients of potentially being laid off for performance shortfalls. Since then, DOGE has been tallying numerous offices leased for environmental agencies among others for a scheduled “Termination via Mass Mod”.
Approximately 65 of these offices on Musk’s chopping block are located in California, 22 or ~35% of them operated by environmental agencies. One of said offices is the EPA’s $572,000 annually leased Los Angeles, but the agency appears to be in favor of the cuts. EPA spokesperson Molly Vaseliou maintains that they are “actively listening to employees at all levels to gather ideas on how to better fulfill agency statutory obligations,” she said over email, emphasizing the EPA’s cooperation with DOGE and assuring they are “taking exciting steps as we enter the next phase of organizational improvements.”
This elaborate downsizing effort has come under scrutiny by opponents of Trump and DOGE, voicing their concerns that this will neither benefit the communities affected nor make a dent in federal spendings.
Democratic lawmakers with the Natural Resources Committee wrote to Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Mar. 14 –– in a letter sharing their opposition to the plans for major terminations across California and the rest of the nation –– that such a decision will “damage the local communities and economies” that rely on agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service. NOAA’s office in Eureka, CA, which holds an outpost for the National Marine Fisheries Service, is up for closure by DOGE. Committee leader Jared Huffman charged Musk on Mar. 18 as being “an unelected billionaire crony” who to him will bring “damage to our public lands.”
The immense Democratic retaliation to the lease cancellations followed earlier anguish around the tremendous layoffs seen in the NOAA nationwide, which many are now connecting to Project 2025’s vision to dismantle the NOAA and NWS despite Trump having disavowed the initiative.
Democrats have made further assessments that the shots taken at environmental offices are possibly leading up to a full dismantlement of the EPA’s Office of Research and Development, the scientific research arm of the agency that keeps informed both their state and city partners. “I am not sure how the EPA could fulfill its legal mandate of public health protection,” said managing director Chitra Kumar, on behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists, pleading to the Trump administration that “the industry will not regulate itself.” The union is worried that sufficient pollution and hazardous chemical safety can not be guaranteed without the ORD.
Meanwhile other critics are skeptical about whether the elimination of these offices will even lessen the budget deficit all that much. Despite DOGE originally projecting earlier this month they will have saved roughly $500 million in leases by late June, those optimistic numbers were reversed to a diminishing $150 million in savings, when 136 accounted-for-leases were removed from the Wall on Mar. 19, according to Business Insider. The sudden backtracking has since given ammunition to dedicated Musk detractors, who were already calling bluff on Musk and Trump, chalking DOGE up to a mere PR stunt or a distracting pony show.
Supporters of Trump and Elon’s efforts have continually defended DOGE and their lease terminations, underlining their own commitment to eliminating government bloat alongside the president. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins has enthusiastically facilitated the administration’s desire to end 36 leases for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, 5 of which in California cities including Oxnard, Salinas, and Blythe according to the database. The General Services Administration has also robustly cooperated with the Musk team, sending out 827 lease termination notices last week, although they rescinded 117 other previous notices. Yet, back-and-forth agency support has not stopped the voices of everyday Americans like the American Petroleum Institute and several other groups, who collectively sent Congress a letter showing their support of Trump’s aim to undo the California Clean Air Act.
“In partnership with DOGE, I just CANCELLED 9 more wasteful EPA DEI and Environmental Justice contracts, saving American taxpayers another ~$60 MILLION,” celebrated EPA Zeldin on X in February, “I’m just warming up! I have ZERO tolerance for even a penny of your hard-earned tax dollars to be wasted or abused.”
The support that President Trump and Elon Musk have at their side will have to keep up the current momentum DOGE is feeling right now, and will have to outlast the current attacks on Tesla dealerships happening all over the country in cities like Burbank and San Francisco.
