Trump Orders Media Blackout at Govt Agencies: Bans Use of Social Media, Bars New EPA Contracts
By Tyler Durden / ZeroHedge.com
It wasn’t just the EPA.
Earlier today, we reported that the Trump administration instituted a media blackout at the Environmental Protection Agency and barred staff from awarding any new contracts or grants.
Emails sent to EPA staff since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday and reviewed by The Associated Press, detailed the specific prohibitions banning press releases, blog updates or posts to the agency’s social media accounts. On Monday, the Huffington Post reported that EPA grants had been frozen, with agency employees barred from speaking of the matter. The memo ordering the social media blackout is shown below.
Cited by The Hill, Myron Ebell, who leads the Trump EPA transition, confirmed the 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.
The Trump administration reportedly told the Department of the Interior to stop tweeting from its accounts over the weekend after the National Park Service’s Twitter account retweeted a post about the crowd sizes at Trump’s inauguration Friday. The agency brought back its accounts on Saturday.
Asked if the EPA had been gagged, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Tuesday: “I don’t know … we’re looking into it … I don’t think it’s a surprise we’re going to review the policies but I don’t have any info at this time.”
According to Reuters sources, the move “reinforced concerns that Trump, a climate change doubter, could seek to sideline scientific research showing that carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels contributes to global warming, as well as the career staffers at the agencies that conduct much of this research.”
The agency also was asked by the White House on Monday to temporarily halt all contracts, grants and interagency agreements pending a review, according to multiple sources. The EPA awards billions of dollars worth of grants and contracts every year to support programs around environmental testing, cleanups and research. According to Reuters,
the White House sent a letter to the EPA’s Office of Administration and Resources Management ordering the freeze on Monday. “Basically no money moving anywhere until they can take a look,” the staffer said, asking not to be named.
* * *
Now, as Reuters adds, other agencies were also impacted, and the Trump’s administration has put staff at a slew of government agencies on notice – “be careful what you say.”
In addition to the EPA, the Interior Department and the U.S. Department of Agriculture also has seen efforts to curb communication. On Monday, staff at the department’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) were asked in an email to suspend the release of “any public-facing documents.”
“This includes, but is not limited to, news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content,” the email said.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture disavowed the email on Tuesday, saying in a statement that it was released without “departmental direction and prior to departmental guidance being issued.”
“ARS will be providing updated direction to its staff,” according to the statement.
The ARS focuses on scientific research into the main issues facing agriculture, including long-term climate change.
Last week, staff at the Interior Department were told to stop posting on Twitter after an employee retweeted posts about the relatively low attendance at Trump’s inauguration, and about how the issues of climate change and civil rights had disappeared from the White House website.
The department has since resumed tweeting.
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Whistler Blowers, Insiders
The EPA is one of several agencies that needs it’s budget cut by 80%.
Respectfully disagree…
The EPA needs to be GONE!
Just as the NEA.
And many others…
No matter what you think about the EPA, the executive branch has NO AUTHORIYTY to limit free press. Trump with all of his illegal EO’s has already proven to be just as lawless as Obama. Do we really want government by presidential fiat? Or should I say dictatorship.
I hope Trump will do away the EPA. I also hope he will shut down the murderous Monsanto company that is poisoning us. He is on a roll, cleaning house and I am loving it…
The EPA is at least a bulwark against big business that would put its profits above our health and our soil. Doing away with the EPA completely would be handing companies like Monsanto free rein.
Let the States self-regulate. What works best for them. Take the Fed OUT of the picture.
It’s easier to remove a dirty LOCAL politician than a Federal one.
We need the EPA, although we should not. We now have technology that allows us to not destroy our environment, but we still shrink back from using it.
I am old enough to remember before the EPA, when brick buildings in industrial cities were black and when the soot in the air ate the paint jobs off of cars.
This country has made great strides in cleaning up our nation instead of it being one giant shithouse like it was in the 50s and 60s.
I remember the Ohio river that caught fire, and high smog days that were unsafe to go outside during.
We don’t need to go back to that.
That President Trump is doing something that sounds more like a cheney or obama move is a bit disturbing.
Having a secret closed door government is never good, and requiring federal employees to not speak their minds is unthinkable, it is the action of a communist dictator. Secret government is evil.
We can do away with the EPA since they actually promote pollution and how about their fine job of keeping our air clean? How are the poisonous chemtrails doing with Obama the ISIS queen?
I am sure the EPA has nothing to do with chemtrails.
Being as we have no clue exactly what chemtrails are, we have no idea if they are pollution or not.
We do indeed need an EPA. We need regulation of all kinds. Totally unfettered capitalism is far more dangerous than communism.
There needs to be rules about how corporations can pollute the land, water , and air, just the same way they dictated to me exactly how I could put my septic system in when I built my house.
Without those kinds of regulations, your neighbor could simply vent his toilets into his yard.
The same thing with corporations, only when the corporations vent their shit into the yard it doesn’t just flow onto the neighbors property, it can do damage for hundreds of miles.
I also recall the 50s and 60s and do not believe Trump has any intentions of a repeat. Even Pittsburg has made a 180 from their steel days. But logic says Trump wants to see what the snake Obama regime had plotted and he wants to curtail more disaster and put a handle on any backstabbing destruction.
Boy, you ARE old!