Former Interior official warns that federal contract waste is spiraling out of control

Tyler Hassen, a former Acting Assistant Secretary of Policy, Management and Budget at the U.S. Department of Interior, discussed his efforts to expose inefficiencies within the agency during a televised interview. He claimed to have examined about ten thousand contracts, flagging examples such as a $4.2 million groundwater assessment in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania and multi-million-dollar studies of ocelots and larval fish.

Hassen said he presented these contracts to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum each Saturday, using an Excel-based dashboard. Emphasizing the urgency of the federal deficit, he warned that national debt has risen from $8 trillion in 2005 to $40 trillion now, potentially hitting $100 trillion in the future. He urged all government workers to question whether each contract is mission-critical, arguing that unchecked spending fuels the debt crisis. Hassen’s remarks reflect his broader concern that waste, fraud and abuse extend beyond contracts to entire organizational structures.