"Our institutions are failing the American people and will continue to do so until accountability is demanded by the public and restored by our political leaders."  So says David Bernhardt, former secretary of the Interior in the Trump administration and previously a high-level official in the same department under George W. Bush, in his article from May 27, 2023.  He proceeds to tell his story of the inefficiencies of the bureaucracy and the problem of "decision-making power delegated deep into the bowels of federal agencies" that often is not even consistent with the policy intentions of the president — their boss.  Mr. Bernhardt describes himself as a junior appointee for W who rose in the Interior Department to eventually become secretary, so he has the experience and awareness pertinent to the issue of Administrative State problems.   

In December of 2018, Mr. Bernhardt became acting secretary on the departure of Secretary Zinke, and he was asked to meet President Trump, who informed him of his general policy objectives and told him he was not to report to a staffer — he was to report to Trump.  This was a startling experience for Bernhardt, since the bureaucracy had always had lots of layers, and access to the president was never direct.  He asked the president, "But whom do I actually report to?," and he was told, "You report to me."

Mr. Bernhardt describes some developments that occurred when he worked in Interior and contrasts the Bush approach, which was heavily bureaucratic, and the Trump approach, which was direct and solutions-oriented.  He provided a dramatic example related to the government shutdown and Trump's approach to find solutions and implement them, cut down on the approval process, act, and be accountable.  Bernhardt was able to accomplish a much better handling of the shutdown than had previously occurred in other shutdowns, which were often crude, onerous, and punitive.  The details are worth the read.

Mr. Bernhardt is clear in his assertions about the problems of the U.S. government bureaucracy:

• The executive level leaders of agencies delegate too much and supervise too little.
• The political appointees and career employees have independence and authority to act and often do not act to fulfill the policy directives of the president.
• The government has become incredibly bloated.
• The inefficiencies and make-work nonsense bog down the everyday department activities.
• Moving a non-controversial document to final and published takes months.

As deputy secretary, he worked to streamline the review process and reduce the number of people who reviewed documents.  That also increased the accountability for local directors and reduced the process of review dramatically.  "Surname process" was the name given to the old method: dozens of people had to put their surname on documents as reviewers.  

They were now directly accountable for the environmental impact statements, not 40 people whose names were on a surname sheet. By getting people in a room or on a call together, we could also tell whether or not the state directors had read the documents. When they did, those directors realized how poorly drafted and redundant the documents had become. It appeared to me that managers had been forwarding documents to D.C. for years without having taken the time to read them before attaching their name. Most importantly, when decision makers had to be accountable for the documents they provided, the very purpose of the National Environmental Policy Act was better served. Instead of developing environmental impact statements just to stave off litigation, staff began drafting documents that truly informed agency leaders of the potential consequences of proposed actions and set out a reasonable range of alternatives.

In the absence of clear deadlines and effective oversight, routine agency processes can morph into unrecognizable caricatures of government procedure, with little benefit to the public. As the size of government grows ever larger, agencies become further removed from the mission of delivering services for the American people and less responsive to their needs. 

I hope that by sharing my perspective I can help Americans appreciate that a representative government requires the political leadership—of both parties—to reassert control of administrative agencies. Our institutions are failing the American people and will continue to do so until accountability is demanded by the public and restored by our political leaders.

I have some bad news that reflects the nature of bureaucracies better than I could have imagined.  I sent out to many friends and colleagues a commentary on Mr. Bernhardt's essay on the problems of the administrative state and received a remarkable and candid report from a highly positioned consultant in the Trump administration.  I know you might be surprised — maybe not — but Mr. Bernhardt refused to cooperate with a "red team" review approach to Interior Department science and policy actions.  "Red team" is just a fancy word for a serious look at the validity of the science and research being done by department officials and the adequacy or appropriateness of proposed policies and regulations.

Why red team reviews, and why would Bernhardt block them?  Well, it's the problem of bureaucracies.  Often, they are controlled by the opinions and preferences of supposedly independent advisory councils and boards, made up of people beholden to the agency for one reason or another.  My experience with the Environmental Protection Agency Scientific Advisory Board role and the agency review process is that it's locked in and controlled, not inclined to listen or inquire.  Agency actions are locked in, and the process is not designed to produce good decision-making — just confirmatory consent by people that are owned by or subject to heavy influence by the agency.  A red team approach is intended to be an impartial and objective review of research and science that produces well informed and effective policy-making. 

The problem is that the authoritarian and totalitarian tyrants of the administrative state have no taste for good scientific inquiry and policy-making based on objective scientific analysis of proposed solutions.

We are at their mercy because they have so much power and money at their disposal.

John Dale Dunn is a retired emergency physician and inactive attorney in Brownwood, Texas.

Image: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center via Flickr, CC BY 2.0 (cropped).