Executive Order of February 26, 2025: Implementing the President's "Department of Government Efficiency" Cost Efficiency Initiative
- Read the executive order on whitehouse.gov
Stated purpose
"This order commences a transformation in Federal spending on contracts, grants, and loans to ensure Government spending is transparent and Government employees are accountable to the American public." The order targets "discretionary spending through Federal contracts, grants, loans, and related instruments." These are referred to as "Covered Contracts and Grants" under the executive order.
Key Implementation Mechanisms
The order directs all agency heads, "with assistance as requested from the agency's DOGE Team Lead" to take the following actions:
- Justify funding for "non-essential" travel to conferences and other purposes. Each agency must also build a "technological system" that that "centrally records approval for federally funded travel for conferences and other non-essential purposes." Once the system is in place, agency heads must "prohibit agency employees from engaging in federally funded travel for conferences or other non-essential purposes unless the travel-approving official has submitted a brief, written justification for the federally funded travel within such system. Each DOGE Team Lead shall, to the extent consistent with law, provide the Administrator with a monthly informational report listing each agency’s justifications for non-essential travel. Such justifications shall be posted publicly unless prohibited by law or unless the Agency Head grants an exemption from this requirement."
- Build "a centralized technological system within the agency to seamlessly record every payment issued by the agency pursuant to each of the agency’s covered contracts and grants, along with a brief, written justification for each payment submitted by the agency employee who approved the payment." This system will also have to include "a mechanism for the Agency Head to pause and rapidly review any payment for which the approving employee has not submitted a brief, written justification within the technological system."
- Complete within 30 days a review of all existing "Covered Contracts and Grants" and, "where appropriate and consistent with applicable law, terminate or modify (including through renegotiation) such covered contracts and grants to reduce overall Federal spending or reallocate spending to promote efficiency and advance the policies of my Administration." The agencies are further directed to "prioritize the review of funds disbursed under covered contracts and grants to educational institutions and foreign entities for waste, fraud, and abuse."
- Review existing contract and grant processes. Within 30 days agencies must conduct and complete "a comprehensive review of each agency’s contracting policies, procedures, and personnel." Following completion of this review, agency heads must "issue guidance on signing new contracts or modifying existing contracts to promote Government efficiency and the policies of my Administration."
- Freeze all credit cards held by agency employees for 30 days, subject to such exceptions "as the Agency Head, in consultation with the agency’s DOGE Team Lead, deems appropriate."
- Verify real property inventory within 7 days, assess lease termination rights within 30 days, and develop a disposition plan for unneeded government property within 60 days.