Can we talk about Trump's war on the scientific community?

[Aegon]

And the straight-up censorship that's coming with it?

Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates, talking to reporters

President Trump has banned employees of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from giving social media updates and speaking with reporters, according to The Associated Press.

The EPA ban comes amid other reports of agency staff being restricted from interacting the members of the Congress or the general public. 

BuzzFeed reported Tuesday that the Department of Agriculture instituted a similar ban, telling its employees not to distribute information about research papers or to post on Twitter under the agency's name. A Tuesday report in the Huffington Post said agency employees under the Department of Health and Human Services were told not to speak to public officials.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer declined to comment on the reports, saying that he wasn't familiar yet with the specific reported bans. But Spicer said it was natural for a new administration to reconsider agency operations. 

"I don't think it's anything surprise that when there's an administration turnover, that we're going to review the policy," Spicer said. 

The social media ban is part of a series of new restrictions at the EPA under the Trump administration. The Huffington Post reported Monday that EPA grants had been frozen, with agency employees barred from speaking of the matter. 

Myron Ebell, who leads the Trump EPA transition, confirmed the grant freeze to ProPublica.
“They’re trying to freeze things to make sure nothing happens they don’t want to have happen, so any regulations going forward, contracts, grants, hires, they want to make sure to look at them first,” Ebell told ProPublica.

Trump's pick for EPA director, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, has frequently challenged agency policy in court.

USDA scrambles to ease concerns after researchers were ordered to stop publishing news releases

Employees of the scientific research arm at the Agriculture Department were ordered Monday to cease publication of “outward facing” documents and news releases, raising concerns that the Trump administration was seeking to influence distribution of their findings.

Department officials scrambled to clarify the memo Tuesday afternoon, after intense public scrutiny and media requests, stating that the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) had not “blacked out public information” and adding that scientific articles published through professional peer-reviewed journals have not been banned. Such a decree would have conflicted with established scientific integrity standards and previous media guidance “encouraging, but not requiring, USDA scientists to communicate with the media about their scientific findings.”

The memo's shortness and terse language seems to have exacerbated the confusion: “Starting immediately and until further notice, ARS will not release any public-facing documents. This includes, but is not limited to, news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content,” wrote ARS chief Sharon Drumm in an email to employees.

The ARS guidance was not issued in coordination with other offices at the USDA, department officials said, and partially contradicted a department-wide memo that went out on the same day. The USDA-wide memo, issued by the department's acting deputy administrator, Michael Young, was intended to offer guidance on “interim procedures” until a new secretary takes over USDA.

Young stressed during a phone call with reporters Tuesday evening that his guidance does not place a gag order on publication to scientific journals, does not place a blanket freeze on press releases, or prohibit food safety announcements.

“The ARS guidance was not reviewed by me. I would not have put that kind of guidance out. My guidance has to do with policy-related announcement and that sort of thing,” Young said during a phone call with reporters early Tuesday evening. “I had my memo drafted before the ARS memo, I was not a part of it.”

Young’s memo, a copy of which was given to The Washington Post, emphasizes that press releases and policy statements must be routed through the office of the secretary for approval: “In order for the Department to deliver unified, consistent messages, it's important for the Office of the Secretary to be consulted on media inquiries and proposed response to questions related to legislation, budgets, policy issues, and regulations,” said the memo. “Policy-related statements should not be made to the press without notifying and consulting the Office of the Secretary. That includes press releases and on and off the record conversations.”

Young stressed that he is a “career official,” not a partisan appointee, and said that the memo he issued closely mirrored one sent at the beginning of the Obama administration. He also said he shared the memo with Trump transition official Sam Clovis before issuing it.

“This is really just formalizing again what is fairly standard practice within the department. I just felt like, yeah, I want to be cautious because I don’t want any surprises on my watch. I was trying to avoid any surprises,” he said.

The Agricultural Research Service employs thousands of in-house scientists, maintains scores of research locations around the country and boasts a $1 billion budget. It is tasked with conducting research to “develop and transfer solutions to agricultural problems of high national priority,” according to the USDA. That research focuses on topics such as food safety, nutrition, animal and crop production, and agricultural sustainability.

Research publicized on the USDA's website this month includes papers such as “Helping Arizona Wheat Growers Maximize Resources” and “Test Uses Novel Antibodies to Detect Shiga Toxins.”

The “public-facing documents” memo Monday, which was first reported by BuzzFeed, raised fears that the new Trump administration was attempting to filter articles about ongoing scientific research being conducted by ARS.

The ARS sought to ease those concerns Tuesday afternoon. Young also said Tuesday evening that he had spoken with ARS and suggested he might support clarifying or rescinding the research agency’s confusing guidance.

“As the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief scientific in-house research agency, ARS values and is committed to maintaining the free flow of information between our scientists and the American public as we strive to find solutions to agricultural problems affecting America,” ARS said in a statement to The Post Tuesday afternoon, seeking to clarify the scope of the memo.

USDA and ARS have issued media guidance in the past. Under the Obama administration, guidance published in 2013 stipulated that USDA employees should clear any “media inquiries on topics that are sensitive” with public affairs staffers. That media guidance, which appeared to have been last updated in 2016, also urges them to communicate with supervisors about “any instances where they feel public affairs or communications staff is stifling their ability to communicate about their work.”

The USDA does not yet have a permanent department head. Former Georgia governor Sonny Perdue was nominated by President Trump to head the USDA last week but has not yet begun the confirmation process. The congressional committee overseeing his hearing has not given guidance on when his hearing will take place, pending his submission of necessary paperwork.

Trump admin tells EPA to take down its climate change report

The Trump administration has requested that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) take down the climate change page from its website, according to a new report.

President Trump's administration ordered the page go down as early as Wednesday, Reuters reported. 

The page, which was still up as of Tuesday evening, includes links pages detailing the causes of climate change and information about greenhouse gas emissions.

"If the website goes dark, years of work we have done on climate change will disappear," an EPA staffer told Reuters.

The staffer told Reuters that some EPA employees were moving quickly to save information from the website before it went dark and were hoping to convince the Trump administration to keep parts of it.

The report follows President Trump’s ban on EPA employees from posting on social media or speaking with the press, an apparent effort from the new administration to gain control over federal agencies and minimize dissenting views.

The EPA’s climate change site won’t be the only page from the Obama era to be taken down as a new party takes control of the Oval Office. 

The climate change webpage from the White House’s main site was taken down less than an hour after Trump was sworn in on Friday.

Webpages on LGBT rights were also taken down from the White House and Department of Labor websites shortly after Trump’s inauguration.

The White House regulations page also disappeared on Monday.

This is ridiculous.

[Jesster]

Thank you for making the threads about Trump that I can actually take seriously, Aegon. This does indeed smell like trouble in the making.

[Nay_Sayer]

We can but it makes no difference.


I already firmly believe idiocracy was a documentary and I can only sit and watch in amusement.

[vorlon13]

EPA should have received quite a black eye over the Detroit water contamination fiasco but for some reason got a pass.

Now we are looking at a throwing the baby out with the bath water situation, and so again, it's a mixed situation,

[Jackalope]

"Can we talk about Trump's war on the scientific community?"

Apparently not if you work for USDA or FDA.

[Chad32]

No more EPA. No more FDA. I'm afraid food poisoning is about to spike, and I won't be able to trust labels anymore, because the "food police" won't be able to keep people from putting shit in my food for the next four years. This is just the beginning of republicans running roughshod over our country, but in four years they won't have anyone but themselves to blame, because they're in charge of everything.

[Minimalist]

Why so surprised?  Science deals in facts.  The WLB deals in Alternative "Facts."

Our descent to 3d world status is accelerating.

[Joods]

Just curious, but doesn't the ban violate the Right To Know Act?

[Crunchy]

So the man who vowed to drain the swamp is making the swamp bigger and the water murkier. 

I can't believe Trump would lie like that. 

[Kosh]

It seems like all the abrahamic religions are doing their best to bring about the end of the world.

War
Pollution
Overpopulation
Anti-science
Anti-logic
Tribalism