Trump EPA crackdown has federal workers fearing for their jobs | McClatchy DC
lterrat's bookmarks 2017-01-26
Summary:
"All federal employees knew their lives would be changed by Trump’s election, and that was especially true for the EPA’s 15,300 employees and the 70,000 employees of the Department of Interior, which controls vast tracks of lands, particularly in the West.
Trump campaigned on opening up federal lands to more oil and gas drilling and at one time called for eliminating the EPA.
Yet the speed of the changes has surprised many. One of Trump’s first actions was to remove a Climate Action Plan from the White House website. On Monday, he ordered a freeze on federal hiring, a prelude to reducing the federal workforce through attrition and possibly layoffs. He also told the EPA to freeze all grants and contracts.
Probably the biggest concern is that the Trump administration will try to modify or block agency research and findings to suit its talking points. Interior and EPA are two agencies that conduct climate research, but others do so as well – namely NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."