Secretarial orders, actions and memorandums

Implements EO 14156, Declaring a National Energy Emergency, and EO 14315, Ending Market Distorting Subsidies for Unreliable, Foreign-Controlled Energy Resources. Directs the U.S. Forest Service to “develop and use the necessary administrative processes to incorporate land-use efficiency metrics into the screening of applications for power generation on National Forest System lands.” It further directs the agency to establish screening criteria to “ensure that energy-related permit applications optimize energy generation per unit of land while taking into consideration environmental, social, and economic considerations.” It places emphasis on projects with higher land-use efficiency and that generate more energy with a smaller footprint.

Outlines the expected reorganization plan for the U.S. Department of Agriculture that will include further reductions of staff through various mechanisms including voluntary programs like the Deferred Resignation Program and Voluntary Early Retirement. It will consolidate USDA operations into five hubs located in Raleigh, N.C.; Kansas City, Mo.; Indianapolis, Ind.; Fort Collins, Colo.; and Salt Lake City, Utah. It will maintain administrative operations for human resources staff in Albuquerque, N.M., and Minneapolis, Minn. In addition, it will reduce the D.C.-based staff from about 4,600 employees to no more than 2,000. The agency will retain the Whitten and Yates buildings in Washington, D.C., as well as the National Agricultural Library. It will vacate and ultimately dispose of the South Building, Braddock Place and the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. The George Washington Carver Center will be retained for a period of time as a temporary location during the transition of USDA offices and personnel. In addition, the agency will eliminate “management layers and bureaucracy” by doing things such as realigning the NRCS regional structure with the five USDA hub locations. The memorandum charges the deputy secretary with leading the implementation of the reorganization plan.

Outlines actions to improve internal management of the Agriculture Department's approach to wildfire response and mitigation. Among other things, it directs all mission areas to assess their ability to engage with wildfire response, ensure the employees who can support response have all qualifications, including red cards, and “identify the impact of the voluntary departures on the firefighting and fire support workforce and propose a plan and timeline to remedy critical vacancies and immediate changes to business practices to ensure adequate resource capability and mobilization…”

Clarifies that federally recognized Native American Tribes and Tribal citizens, Alaska Natives and the Native Hawai’ian community are not covered by the following executive orders: EO14151, Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing (1/29/2025); EO 14168, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government (1/30/2025); and EO 14173, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (1/31/2025).

Delegates authority to the chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service to serve as the Agriculture Secretary's proxy to the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission.

Creates a categorical exclusion from the hiring freeze for jobs related to national security and public safety, including firefighters, and food and consumer safety inspectors.

Directive on Departmental Grants and Cooperative Agreement Priorities. Directs all USDA agencies and staff offices to review all active awards still in their period of performance and awards selected for funding but not yet obligated to ensure the funds are not being used for “discriminatory practices including DEI. It further calls for awards deemed to be inconsistent with the department’s priorities to be terminated, in whole or in part or modified and to send notice to relevant party.”

Directive on Conservation and Natural Resources Priorities. Directs all USDA agencies to review all active awards and awards selected but not yet funded to ensure the department is not funding awards or organizations that promote or take part in climate change or environmental justice initiatives and to terminate, in whole or in part, or otherwise modified any agreements that are not consistent with the department's policies.

Rescinds all Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility programs, halts all “identity month” celebrations and requires all USDA forms to eliminate any requirement to base a decision on a individuals’ belonging to a particular identity group unless required to do so by law.

Implements President Trump’s Executive Order 14154, Unleashing American Energy. Establishes the department’s goal as unleashing “the great abundance of American energy required to power modern life and to achieve a durable state of American energy dominance” by moving away from net-zero policies. In addition, it prioritizes technological breakthroughs, including nuclear fusion, high-performance computing, quantum computing and AI to “maintain America’s global competitiveness.” Among other things, it also calls for fortifying the electric grid by identifying and exercising existing authorities and streamlining the permitting process.

Implements Executive Order 14315, Ending Market Distorting Subsidies for Unreliable Foreign-Controlled Energy Sources. It directs the department to identify and eliminate “preferential treatment toward wind and solar facilities, in comparison to dispatchable energy sources.” It gives departmental assistant secretaries 30 days to review regulations, guidance, policies and practices in their jurisdiction related to a list of decision-making processes or components, or those processes including land use and site authorization, environmental and wildlife permits and analyses, processes related to Tribal and Native lands, and commercial and financial authorizations. Assistant secretaries are further directed to consult with other agencies and assess whether projects are “in the public interest and consistent with the requirement that the department manage public lands for multiple uses, protect environmental concerns, earnestly value public participation, coordinate with other government entities, and make decisions in conformance with land-use plans. Findings from the review are to be submitted to the Office of the Secretary with recommendations on actions to take to be compliant with EO 14315. In addition, it gives the Assistant Secretary of Lands and Minerals Management 45 days to provide a report to the secretary on trends in environmental impacts from onshore and offshore wind projects, economic costs associated with wind energy, effect of taxpayer-funded subsidies on artificially propping up the wind industry, and impacts on military readiness from wind energy.

Implements EO 14253, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, which directed the secretary to improve the infrastructure of Independence National Historic Park and complete projects prior to July 4, 2026. The secretarial order calls on the heads of the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Reclamation to implement EO 14253 by reviewing and identifying “public monuments, memorials, statues, markers, or similar properties…that have been removed or changed from January 1, 2020." It excludes properties held in trust for an individual Native American or Native American Tribe, except lands that are part of the national park system. It also directs the land management agencies to review properties for inappropriate content and to remove such content within 120 days of the date of the order. It directs the land management agencies to post signage to ensure public awareness and allow for public input on areas that need improvement, services that need improvement or “any signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur and abundance of landscapes and other natural features.”

Directs all DOI bureaus and offices to identify emergency authorities as well as other legal authorities to expedite the identification and siting of domestic energy resources and critical minerals.

Implements Executive Order 14154, Unleashing American Energy. Directs all assistant secretaries to develop a plan for complying with EO 14154 including terminating all actions and previous orders that were revoked by President Trump. It also calls for a review of all appropriations from the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to ensure alignment with administration priorities.

Directs interior bureaus and offices to review and identify programs and regulations that result in higher costs with a focus on “coercive climate policies.”

Implements President Trump’s deregulation agenda and mandates that every Interior bureau and office identify at least ten regulations for elimination before proposing any new regulation. Further requires regulatory costs to be offset by eliminating costs associated with existing regulations.

Implements EO 14151, Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Program and Preferencing.