Trump team launches climate change
'Witch Hunt'
A
"document circulated by the Energy Department," first reported by Bloomberg on December 8
and later by Politico, lists 65 questions posed by the
transition team.
Some
sought specific information on "employees and contractors who attended
United Nations climate meetings, along with those who helped develop the Obama
administration's social cost of carbon metrics, used to estimate and justify
the climate benefits of new rules," Bloomberg reported.
"Sounds
like a freaking witch hunt," a former Energy staffer said in an email to Politico.
"Why is that important for informing the transition team?" a current Department of Energy (DOE) staffer told the news outlet, adding that "some [of the questions] are harassment, some are naïve, some are legitimate."
Sierra
Club Global Climate Policy director John Coequyt did not mince words in his response to
the reporting.
"It
looks like Trump and his administration are planning a political witch hunt
which has no place in American government," Coequyt said, "purging or
marginalizing anyone who has worked on the issue of climate change.
"And
that's at the same time they are looking for ways to eliminate the very
scientific infrastructure we need to monitor changes to our planet and its
climate," he added, referring to the recent news that Trump would be eliminating all climate research at NASA.
"You can't purge physics from planet earth, and seas will keep rising
regardless."
These
fears were circulating Friday, just as word broke that Trump had nominated drilling enthusiast and climate
change denier Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) to run the Interior
Department, following the appointment of
fossil fuel industry ally Scott Pruitt to head the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA).
Reporting
further on the memo, Bloomberg notes that the document "signals
which of the department's agencies could face the toughest scrutiny under the
new administration."
Among
those targeted are the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, which Bloomberg describes as "a 7-year-old unit
that has been a critical instrument for the Obama administration to advance
clean-energy technologies."
The
transition team is reportedly seeking "a complete list of ARPA-E's
projects" as well as information about the "Mission Innovation"
and "Clean Energy Ministerial" efforts.
Also,
the Energy Information Administration, the DOE's statistics branch, is
"the subject of at least 15 questions that probe its staffing, data and
analytical decisions, including whether its forecasts underestimate future U.S.
oil and gas production."
Other
questions probe the issue of aging nuclear plans, as the Trump team ponder,
"what can DOE do to help prevent premature closure of plants?" and
"How can the DOE support existing reactors to continue operating?"
The
incoming president has not been discreet about his energy agenda, which largely includes slashing
environmental regulations, opening up more domestic oil and gas drilling, approving more pipelines and
fossil fuel infrastructure, and dismantling efforts to address climate change,
such as the Paris climate agreement and Obama's Clean Power Plan.
