EPAAs of midnight January 24, the Environmental Protection Agency’s climate change webpage and links were still up and operating.
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Publicly-funded science on climate change is about to disappear from its home on the internet, Reuters reports.
There’s a growing concern in the scientific community and among environmental organizations that the new administration might take aim at climate change research in particular.
Much of that data is available on its website and is part of the toolkit scientists use to study the health, safety, and future of the planet. “Basically no money moving anywhere until they can take a look”, the staffer said, asking not to be named. “They’ve been told by their own agencies to follow their own policies”.
Wednesday morning, Greenpeace seized a crane visible from the White House and dropped a 70ft banner with the word “resist” painted on it in large black letters 300ft in the air. The agency has been barred from issuing press releases, publishing on social media and other communications by career staff.
The incoming administration’s tension with climate-related agencies became even more explicit later in the week. National Park Service rangers also started sharing anti-Trump and pro-science information on an “alternative” National Parks Twitter account.
For many federal agencies, the Trump era began in total darkness this week. Myron Ebell was on the Trump transition team.
When asked if climate change fit into that, he repeated that they’ll focus on the core mission.
Do the Badlands tweets, and the earlier ones after the inauguration, reflect a budding resistance within the National Park Service?
But, the Maryland Department of the Environment said it has yet to speak to the Trump administration about how the freeze will impact the state.
Ruch said he was more concerned about scientific muzzling than controls on social media.
The only limitations, Battle said, would be grants that were already up for congressional review. “We will have not just alternative facts, but alternative research”.
“It doesn’t mean everything that comes out of EPA is going to go through a filter of political appointees with degrees in communications”, Doug Ericksen told The Hill, adding that any changes to the EPA’s climate information will be “science-based”.
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“Any effort to stop a scientific agency from responding to congressional, federal, state and local inquiries has a chilling effect”, said Ben Corb, director of public affairs at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
