Washington: President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team has circulated an unusual 74-point questionnaire at the Department of Energy that requests the names of all employees and contractors who have attended climate change policy conferences, as well as emails and documents associated with the conferences.
In question after question, the document peppers Energy Department managers with pointed queries about climate science research, clean energy programmes and their employees. More broadly, the questionnaire hints at a significant shift of emphasis at the agency toward nuclear power, and a push to commercialise the research of the Energy Department’s laboratories, long considered the crown jewels of federal science.
Energy Department employees, who shared the questionnaire with The New York Times and spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the matter publicly, described the questionnaire as worrying. Mr Trump has just tapped Scott Pruitt, a climate change denialist, to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
The questionnaire “suggests the Trump administration plans a witch hunt for civil servants who’ve simply been doing their jobs,” Robert Weissman, president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, said. “Democrats and Republicans alike should unite to condemn any action that intimidates, threatens or retaliates against civil servants for lawfully doing their jobs.”
- By arrangement with the New York Times.
