In a new push to end some U.S. government surveys, the Trump administration's DOGE team has created its own.
This week, Ethan Shaotran, a member of the unit set up by President Trump's billionaire adviser Elon Musk, used a General Services Administration email address to send a seven-page form titled "2025 Survey of Surveys" to federal agencies, according to documents NPR obtained from a federal agency official who was not authorized to share it with the press.
The move raises questions about whether the controversial team is bypassing the White House's Office of Management and Budget, where federal law set up a subagency to oversee the federal government's statistical activities.
The team that calls itself the "Department of Government Efficiency" may be, in fact, duplicating OMB's ongoing review of federal surveys and the resources they require, some government data watchers say.
This effort is also sparking concerns about potential violations of laws that require the government to report the statistics that a canceled survey would produce.
It's not clear which federal surveys have been "terminated" so far
Before any federal survey can start collecting information from the public, the Paperwork Reduction Act requires it to be approved by OMB, which is charged with determining whether a survey is "necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether the information shall have practical utility."
Still, in a social media post on X, DOGE said Tuesday that it and the Census Bureau are reviewing "one-by-one" more than 100 surveys conducted by the bureau, which has survey contracts with many other federal agencies to carry out interviews, create data tables and analyze statistics on their behalf. Without providing any evidence, DOGE's post claimed many of those surveys are "obsolete with the results not being used to drive any action nor even looked at."
What DOGE framed as a cost-cutting effort has resulted in five "wasteful" surveys being "terminated" as of Tuesday, according to the post, which did not specify which surveys were ended.
The post did criticize survey questions about people's internet usage at home and alcohol consumption. Some government surveys have long tracked such topics, including the Survey of Inmates in Local Jails, which was set to finish its latest data collection this past February. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), which sponsors the survey, has described it as the "only national source of detailed information" on alcohol use and other characteristics of people incarcerated in jails that has been widely cited by Congress and federal agencies such as the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration.
BJS, the Census Bureau, GSA, OMB, the White House and Shaotran have not responded to NPR's requests for comment. The White House has consistently defended DOGE's work in finding savings, but NPR reviews have found DOGE's savings claims to be overstated.
Most of what DOGE's "survey of surveys" is trying to gather is already public
Aside from basic information about a federal survey's methodology, development, costs and whether it's explicitly authorized or required by law, the "2025 Survey of Surveys" that DOGE sent this week asks for specific justifications to continue a survey, as well as references at "important institutions" that could attest to its "mission-critical data." Among its other questions is, "What are the implications if this survey were discontinued tomorrow?"
Under a logo for GSA — which manages federal real estate and contracts — the "Survey of Surveys" form's first page includes a warning in capital letters that agencies that don't participate in this review may face "ADVERSE ACTIONS, INCLUDING TERMINATION OF ASSOCIATED GRANTS, CONTRACTS, OR PROGRAM."
"OMB issues an annual data call to agencies to reduce paperwork burdens, including from surveys. So this separate ask from DOGE is yet another of their duplicative internal reporting requirements of dubious value," says Bridget Dooling, an assistant professor of law at The Ohio State University, who reviewed federal surveys at OMB for over 10 years as a career civil servant and served on the OMB transition team before former President Joe Biden took office. "That they choose to threaten employees along the way adds yet another disgraceful example of this administration's clumsy, malevolent immiseration of federal employees."
Most of the information about federal surveys that DOGE is requesting is already publicly available in the "Information Collection Review" section of Reginfo.gov, a website maintained by OMB and GSA.
Given the multiple lawsuits and court orders the administration is facing because of DOGE's efforts, Dooling adds she's concerned there's a risk that this push to cancel some federal surveys may be breaking specific legal requirements for data to be produced or disregarding Congress' power of the purse by refusing to spend money that lawmakers set aside for a survey.
The Trump administration's OMB director, Russ Vought, has argued certain limits on an administration's spending are unconstitutional.
Dooling says DOGE doesn't "deserve the benefit of the doubt at this point that they're following federal law, so is the thing they're getting rid of violating federal statute? They've shown us we can't trust their analysis when they've canceled something."
Statistical agency heads must have "decision-making authority" over federal surveys, federal regulation says
Nick Hart, president and CEO of the Data Foundation, an open data advocacy group, says any analysis of whether to end a federal survey should also take into account regulation that "unambiguously places decision-making authority for federal statistical activities with statistical agency leadership, not with external entities." That rule came out of a law Trump signed in 2019.
Hart's group is calling for congressional oversight committees to review all changes made to federal surveys this year, as well as for OMB to direct agencies to stop carrying out any recommendations from DOGE's review that conflict with federal regulations.
"Any actions by DOGE to attack, weaken, or degrade our nation's statistical agencies and the vital data they contribute must be thoroughly reviewed and investigated by Congress," Alexandra Bell, Democratic spokesperson for the House Oversight Committee, says in a statement. "The Trump Administration sought to undermine the Census during President Trump's first term as well, likely causing a severe undercount of Hispanic Americans and communities. If DOGE and the Trump Administration are set on renewing their attacks on national statistics and facts — and doing so while purposefully keeping Congress in the dark — Oversight Democrats will fight to ensure transparency, accountability, and fairness."
Spokespeople for the Republicans who control the House Oversight Committee and both sides of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs have not responded to NPR's requests for comment.
DOGE's survey review is adding pressure to statistical agencies that have long faced staffing and funding challenges, especially under the Trump administration's efforts to shrink the federal workforce.
At the Census Bureau, a brain drain of career civil servants has census advocates worried about the agency's ability to prepare for the national head count in 2030, as well as next year's major field test for that tally. The 2030 census results are set to be used to redraw voting maps for every level of government and redistribute each state's share of congressional seats, Electoral College votes and federal funding for public services in the next decade.
While the bureau received an exemption to Trump's hiring freeze and posted job openings this month for temporary workers to conduct survey interviews, more than one-fifth of its leadership positions are vacant, according to a public staff roster released earlier this month.
Have information you want to share about changes at a federal statistical agency or across the federal government? Hansi Lo Wang is available via the encrypted messaging app Signal (hansi.01). Please use a nonwork device.
Edited by Benjamin Swasey
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