The Trump "landing team" has ordered U.S. Environmental Protection Agency staff not communicate publicly -- whether via press releases, website, or social media.
At a time when government information may be harder than ever to access, WatchDog offers a unique guide to leaks that reporters can offer potential whistleblowers. Also in the latest column, sealed records on a weedkiller-cancer connection, secret talks on coal-ash regs and more.
This week's TipSheet looks at the murky legal and regulatory prospects for the Clean Power Plan, an EPA effort to cut carbon emissions now being challenged by the Trump administration. Will it be revoked in presidential action, or is more likely to get drawn into a murky court proceeding?
"Far above the Arctic Circle, one of the longest-running controversies in U.S. oil drilling is about to reignite. Bouyed by Donald Trump’s election, Republicans are pushing to allow oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the frigid wilderness in northern Alaska that’s been a political battleground for drillers and conservationists for decades."
"Nearly simultaneously with President Trump’s oath of office Friday, the White House website shifted to remove climate change related content from the Obama administration and supplant it with a new statement of Trump’s energy policy — one focused, it said, reducing “burdensome regulations on our energy industry.”
"Fearing what might happen to the data that catalogues the details of climate change in an administration with so many climate deniers, researchers rush to save it."
"Contradicting President Donald Trump, his choices to head the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency each told members of Congress during their confirmation hearings this week that climate change is not a hoax, as Trump has alleged."
"A White House panel that questions vaccine safety and attacks immunization standards set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control—a possibility raised last week in meetings with incoming president Donald Trump—could actually lead to increased disease outbreaks."
"The Interior Department reactivated its official Twitter accounts early Saturday after an abrupt shutdown following shares of two tweets during the inauguration the agency considered unsympathetic to President Trump."
"Within moments of the inauguration of President Trump, the official White House website on Friday deleted nearly all mentions of climate change. The one exception: Mr. Trump’s vow to eliminate the Obama administration’s climate change policies, which previously had a prominent and detailed web page on whitehouse.gov."
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