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Government Gutted blog
The Grain Belt Express and the Fifteen-Year Fight to Build One Power Line The story of a Kansas-to-Indiana power line proposed around 2010, the landowners and states that fought over it, and what its canceled federal loan guarantee says about building anything. Executive Order 12898 and Three Decades of Federal Environmental Justice Policy Clinton's 1994 order told every federal agency to weigh environmental justice. How it worked, why it was weaker than it sounded, how later presidents built on it, and how it was revoked in 2025. How to File a Public Comment on a Federal Rule That Agencies Must Weigh How federal rulemaking works, how to find a docket on Regulations.gov, and how to write a comment with facts and experience that an agency has to consider and answer before a rule becomes final. Humphrey's Executor, the 1935 Case Behind Independent Agencies Roosevelt fired a conservative FTC commissioner in 1933 and lost in the Supreme Court. How that case built independent agencies, and how Trump's 2025 FTC firings led the Court to undo it in 2026. Schedule F and the Plan to Make Career Civil Servants Easier to Fire Schedule F would move career federal employees in policy roles into at-will jobs. What the 2020 order did, how it returned in 2025, and what at-will status means for the public. The 2024 Rule to Replace Every Lead Pipe Within a Decade What the EPA's October 2024 lead pipe rule requires, how the 2021 infrastructure law pays for it, what could slow it down, and how to find out what kind of pipe feeds your own kitchen tap. The Department of Education From Carter's 1979 Bill to the 2025 Cuts The Education Department was born in a tight 1979 fight and has been a target ever since. What it actually does, and what the 2025 layoffs and transfers changed for students. The Dismantling of USAID in 2025 and Whether a President Can Close an Agency How USAID went from a locked headquarters in February 2025 to a State Department remnant by July, and what courts said about closing an agency Congress created. The Friday Night Firing of More Than a Dozen Inspectors General in January 2025 On January 24, 2025, the White House dismissed about seventeen inspectors general by email. Here is the notice law it skipped, the precedents, and what the watchdogs did next. The Hatch Act of 1939 and the Line Between Government Work and Campaigning How a 1938 scandal over relief jobs and votes in Kentucky produced the Hatch Act, what federal workers may and may not do in politics today, and why enforcement depends on who is watching. The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 and the Power of the Purse Why Richard Nixon's refusal to spend money Congress had approved led to the 1974 budget law, how GAO enforces it, and what the 2025 fights over frozen funds tested. The Inspector General Act of 1978 and the Watchdogs Inside Every Agency Inspectors general sit inside federal agencies but report to Congress too. What the 1978 law lets them investigate, whom they answer to, and how a president can remove them. The Lavender Scare and the Purge of Gay Federal Workers How a 1953 executive order turned 'sexual perversion' into grounds for firing, how thousands of civil servants lost their careers, and what the purge teaches about civil-service protections now. The Pendleton Act and the Assassination That Created the Civil Service A disappointed office-seeker shot President Garfield in 1881. The outrage that followed produced the 1883 Pendleton Act and the merit-based civil service we are arguing about again. The Pocket Rescission of August 2025 and Spending Congress Already Approved How a rescission request sent in the last weeks of the 2025 fiscal year let about $4.9 billion in foreign aid expire without a vote, and why the legal fight over it matters for every appropriation. What the 2025 Budget Law Cut From the Clean Energy Tax Credits A plain guide to what the July 2025 budget law ended, from EV credits after September 30, 2025, to new deadlines for wind and solar, and which clean energy credits survived. What the 2025 Budget Law's Medicaid Work Requirements Actually Require Who must report 80 hours a month to keep Medicaid under the 2025 budget law, who is exempt, when it starts, and why paperwork rather than work drives most coverage losses. When DOGE Reached the Treasury's Payment Systems in February 2025 How a small DOGE team got into the Treasury systems that send nearly every federal payment, and what the lawsuits that followed said about privacy and power.