I'm referring to things like the DOI rescinding the 2024 Conservation and Landscape Health Rule that allowed private ecologically minded conservation groups to restore and preserve land through leases -- something exploitive resource extracting private entities were already able to do.

Instead the DOI declared their "lean" and "constrained" force would revoke letting private entities lease for conservation. Something at odds with lean employees trying to maximize conservation ROI. Why would they be begging to rip away conservation from private hands into unavailable public hands if they didn't already have the manpower, unless they're playing a political fuck-fuck game?

That reveals the true fuck-fuck game. DOI employees claim they are lean, out of employees, etc while actively pursuing actions that are counter to how those acting in such circumstances are in the interest of acting. But actually their management are rescinding rules that help offload conservation to private actors happy to do it, instead diluting the ability of the DOI to preserve resources by instead tossing additional tasks on already overloaded employees at which point they'll have their spouses on forums complaining and stirring up the voters to try and bring more employees under their grasp. Presuming they're successful, they will then again swamp said employees, and the cycle starts anew.

Which brings me back to my assertion:

>. Thus you have the interesting situation that they always have razor-thin budgets for employees in order to maximize the employee count under them and they spend a huge portion of time doing inefficient processes.

If they were actually trying to unload tasks from employees they'd be happy that environmental groups were trying to take the load off DOI employees and paying them leasing fees to do it, but that's not in the interest of management, as that could reduce their headcount and ability to beg for more money. Thus you can witness from actual acts of the DOI, it doesn't matter how many resources and people they get, their management are acting in ways it will appear to employees like they're broke and thin on people because they're run on ragged edges (something not unique, seen in many other areas of government, that will keep expanding task for current employees to the point they always seem broke and stretched out and then those associated with the organization will beg for more to start the cycle over again).

I’m not sure at all why you’re pointing at a rule established in 2024 and promptly rescinded in 2025 as a way to point out govt. waste.

It was the post-DOGE DOI that rescinded the rule, after the "fat and waste" had been cut.