The Department of Energy won’t be handing over a list of employees who worked on global warming issues to President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team.
“We will be forthcoming with all publically-available [sic] information with the transition team. We will not be providing any individual names to the transition team,” agency spokesman Eben Burnham-Snyder told Washington Post columnist Joe Davidson.
Bloomberg obtained a Trump transition team questionnaire sent to DOE officials. The news outlet reported Trump’s team wanted DOE “to list employees and contractors who attended United Nations climate meetings, along with those who helped develop the Obama administration’s social cost of carbon metrics.”
Union representatives and Democratic lawmakers flipped out at the news. Environmental activists joined in, even spreading a rumor that Trump would delete public climate change databases.
DOE has reassured employees it would not cooperate with the incoming administration on that point.
“The Department of Energy received significant feedback from our workforce throughout the department, including the National Labs, following the release of the transition team’s questions,” Burnham-Snyder said. “Some of the questions asked left many in our workforce unsettled.”
“Our career workforce, including our contractors and employees at our labs, comprise the backbone of DOE (Department of Energy) and the important work our department does to benefit the American people,” Burnham-Snyder said. “We are going to respect the professional and scientific integrity and independence of our employees at our labs and across our department.”
