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2 federal sites in Sault Ste. Marie on DOGE closure list; both house tribal services

2 federal sites in Sault Ste. Marie on DOGE closure list; both house tribal services

Yahoo05-03-2025

SAULT STE. MARIE — As part of the sweeping efforts by the Department of Government Efficiency to reduce federal spending, two buildings in Sault Ste. Marie are set to close.
The sites appear on the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) "Wall of Receipts" under a list of federal properties with upcoming lease terminations.
According to DOGE, the Indian Health Services Sanitation office has an annual lease of $34,375, providing a total savings of $85,937. The local Bureau of Indian Affairs office at 2845 Ashmun St. is the other site slated for closure.
The two buildings house services that are intended to help enhance the quality of life for tribal members and create economic opportunities for Native Americans and Alaska natives.
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Officials from the Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians are still in the process of investigating how much the building closures will impact services going forward.
Sault Tribe Chairman Austin Lowes said he is concerned about the lack of communication from DOGE regarding the closures.
"It's unclear at this time whether that means the offices will be permanently closed, if they will relocate to a different location or if the leases will be renegotiated," Lowes said in a statement on Facebook. "Tribes don't know because we weren't consulted by this administration prior to the closure announcement, which is an obvious problem."
Lowes also noted that the Sault Tribe Health Division is not directly impacted by these closures.
— Contact Brendan Wiesner: BWiesner@Sooeveningnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Sault News: 2 federal office sites in Sault Ste. Marie on DOGE list to close

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Bill Gates pleaded with Marco Rubio to reverse Elon Musk's DOGE cuts to USAID: report
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Bill Gates pleaded with Marco Rubio to reverse Elon Musk's DOGE cuts to USAID: report

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DOGE results murky amid Elon Musk's exit

1 of 5 | Elon Musk and President Donald Trump take part in a press conference in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 30. Musk's work in the government has ended after five months and former White House staff have serious doubts about the Department of Government Efficiency self-reported results. File Photo by Francis Chung/UPI | License Photo June 10 (UPI) -- Elon Musk's work in the government has ended after five months and former White House staff have serious doubts about the Department of Government Efficiency self-reported results. To date, DOGE claims that it has saved the government about $180 billion by slashing the federal workforce, ending contracts, selling assets and cutting grant programs. However, its so-called "Wall of Receipts" is filled with questionable or inaccurate entries, according to Elaine Karmarck, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. 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Musk also said that it has made mistakes in some layoffs, including laying off employees with the National Nuclear Safety Administration who are responsible for the safekeeping of the U.S. nuclear stockpile. The second metric is whether there are fewer government contracts and fewer dollars spent on those contracts. DOGE lists more than 11,000 contract terminations totaling $34 billion in savings. It says more than 15,000 grants have been terminated resulting in about $44 billion in savings. Third is the government's performance as measured by economic markers such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics' unemployment reports as well as people's own experiences receiving government services. "That's a biggie. In other words, you can cut the government but if you have airplanes crashing and you have massive mix ups in Social Security checks, nobody is going to be applauding you for this," Karmarck said. DOGE's goal has been to cut about $2 trillion in federal spending. 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Inaccuracies have been brought to DOGE's attention on social media and it has made some corrections, though questions remain about its transparency. "Transparency has been an issue since day one," Williams told UPI. "This is an example of where DOGE has the power of a cabinet-level agency when it wants to but doesn't have to recordkeep when it doesn't want to. DOGE gets to be whatever is convenient in the moment." Musk's initial role -- as stated by him and Trump -- was to lead DOGE in an effort to tackle waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government for the purpose of making it run more efficiently. The White House later downplayed his direct role with DOGE, referring to him as an adviser to the president. The murkiness of Musk's true role in DOGE underlines why Williams has concerns about its structure, mission and lack of transparency. She has been investigating the office since it began, looking into its structure, who works for DOGE and its potential conflicts of interest. "One thing we learned fairly early on DOGE, its structure was very questionable. It was very opaque and it was opaque by design," Williams said. "That opacity really helped shield it and its actors and its actions from any kind of accountability, whether that's from members of the public or even congressional accountability or even in the courts." "Who led DOGE and worked at DOGE was one thing one day and a different thing on a different day depending on what was advantageous," she continued. Project on Government Oversight filed a lawsuit against DOGE over its lack of recordkeeping made available to the public and accessing sensitive records. DOGE faces lawsuits from other organizations related to its alleged lack of compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. In March, U.S. District Court Judge Casey Cooper ruled that DOGE's records are likely subject to the Freedom of Information Act. This was in response to a lawsuit by the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. There are several more lawsuits against DOGE related to its handling of data, compliance with FOIA and methods of cutting federal workers. In contrast, Karmarck's Reinventing Government Initiative did not face any litigation. "The reason we had no lawsuits is we followed the law," she said. "We passed a buyout bill so we had the congressional authority for buying people out. We simply followed the law." Instead of recommending Congress take actions like laying off federal employees or rescinding funds it has approved, DOGE has taken unilateral actions resulting in lawsuits. Funding approved by Congress requires congressional action to end. DOGE is not a congressionally approved agency, as a president cannot unilaterally create a new agency. He can create a new office, as past presidents have done. The authority of that office to take actions is limited, making it closer to an adviser than a federal agency. Accessing federal data systems and making changes is among the actions DOGE has taken that have raised the greatest concerns. Beth Noveck was the founding director of the White House's Open Government Initiative, a program started under President Barack Obama's administration that focused on using technology and data to modernize and improve government operations. She is currently the director of the Governance Lab and its MacArthur Research Network on Opening Governance at New York University. Noveck told UPI oversight on DOGE is past overdue, due to reports of the data it has accessed or attempted to access, including Medicare and Medicaid payment data, Social Security records, student loan data and the Office of Personnel Management systems. "Who has access and how it is being used is something we need an accounting of," Noveck said. "It's concerning and it seems that we're giving access to the likes of Palantir [Technology] to combine data that will effectuate mass surveillance and control. The risk is not just a failed attempt at cost savings, it's a successful attempt at authoritarian overthrow." The main tenets of DOGE are not new, evidenced by the work Noveck and Karmarck did for past administrations. There are nonpartisan government oversight entities that existed before Trump's current term as well, including the Office of Government Ethics and the inspectors general. However, shortly after Trump returned to office he fired the head of the Office of Government Ethics and 18 inspectors general. Last week, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., released a report on Musk's 130 days working in the government. The report alleges that Musk used his position to direct lucrative government contracts toward himself and his companies SpaceX, Tesla, Boring Company and Starlink. Amid an online feud with Musk following his departure as a White House Adviser, Trump has threatened to cancel all contracts with his companies. Warren's report also alleges that Musk and DOGE undercut agencies responsible for regulating his businesses and stopped enforcement actions against them.

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