Transition Team Seeks Names Of Climate Meeting Participants (Update)
Trump transition team for Energy Department seeks names of employees involved in climate meetings, Washington Post
“Donald Trump’s transition team has issued a list of 74 questions for the Energy Department, asking agency officials to identify which employees and contractors have worked on forging an international climate pact as well as domestic efforts to cut the nation’s carbon output. The questionnaire requests a list of those individuals who have taken part in international climate talks over the past five years and “which programs within DOE are essential to meeting the goals of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan.” … Thousands of scientists have signed petitions calling on the president-elect and his team to respect scientific integrity and refrain from singling out individual researchers whose work might conflict with the new administration’s policy goals. This potential clash could prompt a major schism within the federal government, with many career officials waging a battle against incoming political appointees.”
Will Trump Scrap NASA’s Climate Research Mission?, Pro Publica
“But with the election of Donald Trump, there was immediate concern — inside NASA and among the fans of its valued work on global warming — about the future of the agency’s earth-science program. Within hours of Trump’s acceptance speech on Nov. 9, an internal email from a senior official in the Earth Sciences division at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center circulated within NASA acknowledging worry that “funding may now be exposed to severe reductions.” The last month is not apt to have eased that alarm. How does an astrobiologist react when advisors to the president-elect propose cutting funding to earth studies? Trump’s most visible advisor on space policy has been Bob Walker, a former House Science committee chairman who is now a space-policy lobbyist pressing to move “Earth-centric” and “heavily politicized” climate science out of NASA altogether. And Christopher Shank, who was chosen by Trump to lead the transition at NASA, is a seasoned strategist who has expressed strong skepticism about the severity of global warming.”
Keith’s note: There are a number of Federal agencies involved in Earth and climate science – DOE, DOI, NOAA, NSF – and NASA. Given that the DOE Trump Landing Team is trying to find out which DOE employees are involved in climate research – and that Trump transition team advisor Bob Walker has been very specific about moving “Earth centric” programs (e.g. climate research) to another agency – one would expect that the NASA Trump Landing Team is going to be asking similar questions at NASA. Stay tuned.
Keith’s update: Energy Dept refuses to name staffers who worked on climate for Trump transition, The Hill
“The Department of Energy said Tuesday it will reject the request by President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team to name staffers who worked on climate change programs. Energy spokesman Eben Burnhan-Snyder said the agency received “significant feedback” from workers regarding a questionnaire from the transition team that leaked last week. “Some of the questions asked left many in our workforce unsettled,” Snyder said. The survey for department leadership included more than 70 questions regarding what the agency does, its workforce, costs, professional affiliations and more.”
Donald Trump is clearly getting read to do a good old fashioned dictatorial purge.
“I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects.” Rick Perry
13. Can you provide a list of all DOE employees or contractors who have attended any Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon meetings? Can you provide a list of when those meetings were and any materials distributed at those meetings, emails associated with those meetings, or materials created by Department employees or contractors in anticipation of or as a result of those meetings?
https://www.washingtonpost….
Of 74 requests for information listed exactly ONE (the first) asks about climate meetings:
1. Can you provide a list of all boards, councils, commissions, working groups, and FACAs [Federal Advisory Committees] currently
active at the Department? For each, can you please provide members,
meeting schedules, and authority (statutory or otherwise) under which
they were created?
The rest seem to be reasonable inquiries to clarify ongoing activities and lines of authority. You can read these many ways: desire to drop EV subsidies, refurbish/relicense aged nuclear plants, accelerate commercialization from natl labs, have EIA spin the industry story on fracking, etc. But that is just conjecture now.
Its the first question… Note the details of 13….
19. Can you provide a list of Department employees or contractors who attended any of the Conference of the Parties (under the UNFCCC) in the last five years?
CCC== Convention of climate change
13. Can you provide a list of all DOE employees or contractors who have attended any Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon meetings? Can you provide a list of when those meetings were and any materials distributed at those meetings, emails associated with those meetings, or materials created by Department employees or contractors in anticipation of or as a result of those meetings?
Evidently I’m looking at a different list. Your #13 is my #27.
There are only two questions I’d consider out of line:
* My #18. “How many vacancies does EIA have in management and staff positions? What plans, if any, does EIA have to fill those positions before January 20?” I don’t see how that’s any of the transition team’s business.
* My #40: “Can you provide a list of Department employees or contractors who attended any of the Conference of the Parties (under the UNFCCC) in the last five years?”
However, I also distrust several others.
Following the link from the Washington Post Article above. Adding the extra requests makes it quite a bit more than “over the line”.
https://www.washingtonpost….
Your #18 has relevance if you are downsizing the DOE. The first step in any down sizing would be to not fill any vacancies.
Yes, but they are asking about vacancies they don’t have any authority over filling or not filling. My question is, “Why?”
Who gets to question the questioners ?
The voters.
A plurality of whom rejected Trump. So there is hope.
An attempt to present facts in an even-handed way, lest [edited from ‘let’] our host take offense:
Hope? No. There is not.
And the reason is fairly simple: we are not playing with a fair deck and we are not opposed by a respectable opponent, who has taken every opportunity to gerrymander districts into a permanent majority (Tom DeLay, et al), created voter-suppression rules with alacrity (Gov. Kasik, and others, including Gov. Scott), and planted in the minds of the public that there is wide-spread voter fraud in this country (the President-elect).
Further, working Americans have been induced to support positions clearly against self-interest, including a bloated defense department, fear of terrorism far beyond actual personal danger, unionization, health care, personal freedom, and privacy.
It’s stunning and will be studied by political scientists for centuries.
In fact far more voters choose progressive candidates than chose the alternative, but this actual majority of Americans is forever silenced, absent social upheaval on the scale of the Sixties.
It is a bomb ready to go off.
NASA is inconsequential.
Trump didn’t invent this sort of thing. When literally everything is politicized and rational skeptics suddenly become “deniers”, the people who use such tactics shouldn’t be surprised when those same tactics are eventually turned around on them. Examples are rife for anyone who wants to do a little GFGI, but here are just a couple.
http://www.ecowatch.com/20-…
http://www.eecg.utoronto.ca…
If you don’t see the difference you are part of the problem.
On re-reading this comment I see it’s more flippant than intended. The term ‘rational skeptics’ used in the context of climate science has become something of a dog whistle.
The meaning of the world is the separation of wish and fact.
Kurt Gödel
The ‘leaders’ are worse since they go with what they ‘believe’, not facts, and do not take the time to listen.
In tandem, the companies fund denial to alter beliefs: http://www.greenpeace.org/u…
Roy’s Spencer is one skeptic and here is his blunder:
https://skepticalscience.co…
https://www.theguardian.com…
Independent agencies –more difficult to suppress facts.
Because of liability, it is essential to deny effects. Profits require no carbon tax and not checking for gas leaks at the expense of the environment. The 1938 natural gas act ensures that export of energy is in, get this, the ‘public’ or national interest since its a national security issue.
Those who want to know the truth should look at the science, not the politics. The vast majority of scientists are neither alarmists nor skeptics. There is always uncertainty in science, but this uncertainty is reduced by objective research, not by quashing research one does not agree with.
In this case the uncertainties in climate modeling remain substantial, and so there is considerable uncertainty as to the exact degree of warming that is produced by burning fossil fuels, but the warming effect clearly exists.
The solution is more accurate sensors and measurements, which enable more reliable predictive modeling of the complex atmospheric environment. The solution is not the purging of the scientists who have gathered the array of data we now have based on the perception that they may discover something we do not want to know.
Since the US contributes very little to global CO2, it would seem that a solution would emphasize reducing CO2 through some other means than eliminating output. An example would be converting CO2 to some other compound.
Monitoring CO2 is useful, but I’ve been disappointed in the scarcity of results from OCO-2.
You had better rethink your statement on who produces how much unless you have done the research yourself – 2 year old data here: http://www.wri.org/blog/201…
US contributes 16% CO2 currently. Article makes no mention of what that elimination would do to lower global temperature. Seems unlikely to lower CO2 enough to affect global temperature significantly.
The US still has the highest per capita emissions and about half the total of China. If total historical emissions are considered we are still by far the highest. To suggest that we are not part of the problem and will not substantially reduce our emissions will be to abandon our responsibilities.
“Rational Skeptics”? Exxon’s own scientists told them climate change was a real and serious problem, yet management spent millions on “think tanks” that sought to cloud the issue — and had an alarming degree of success.
For those curious, the questionnaire is here:
http://www.eenews.net/asset…
Actually looking at the entire questionnaire from the perspective of business management this is doesn’t appear to be about finding individuals to reprimand (as politicians think) but for determining which parts of DOE might be salvaged in a reorganization/merger and which parts could be eliminated to save money.
Don’t let facts get in the way of a good narrative.
That’s a reasonable view, and I think it’s part of what they’re after. But why ask about jobs that will be filled before they take over? They’d have to eliminate those jobs whether filled or not, if they deemed them superfluous.
Now when it comes to asking for names of people who worked on climate change, it’s hard to see why that isn’t pernicious.
Trump and his faithful appear to reject global warming on ideological grounds as “socialist science”, as Nazis rejected relativity as “Jewish science”. We must not go there.
Mr. Godwin appears.
I would say it was because both were successful business owners. But in this politically charged environment folks seem to be looking for the worst in the motives from the side opposite to the one they believe in.
But again, as someone who teaches strategic management, the folks at DOE shouldn’t be worrying about being reprimanded, they should be worrying if there will be a DOE in the next budget cycle. They need to move beyond that one question and start looking at the other 73 questions.
Draining the swamp not only means getting rid of lobbyists and the revolving door in Washington, it means also getting rid of the agencies they feed on.
I suppose firing everyone would also pull the rug out from under and wrongful termination lawsuits. It’s not as is anyone could claim they were discriminated against. But I can’t see eliminating DoE entirely: without repealing a large body of law DoE approval is necessary for a number of business activities. Even if the new administration wanted to hand business interests a blank check, they would still need a DoE Office of Blank Check Signing.
I never have met a bureaucrat that didn’t think they were essential to the survival of the world 🙂
But in regards to closing the DOE, just as it was created by an Act of Congress it will take another Act of Congress to close it down. Included in that Act with be very specific language on which agencies, responsibilities and regulations will be done away with, which will be kept and if they will be the responsibility of new spin-off agencies or agencies transferred to other department. It took decades to build up the bureaucracy of the DOE ($32 billion worth) and it will take time to downsize it.
For example, the NRC’s functions existed before it was created and will be needed after the DOE is gone. Will it once again be a stand alone agency or placed elsewhere in the government? Same with the national labs, and other parts of it. So it will not be an easy task to get rid of it. The 74 questions being asked is only the starting point.
More support for the idea that the purpose of this questionnaire is to reorganize or eliminate the DOE.
https://www.washingtonpost….
Trump taps former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to head Energy Department he once vowed to abolish
Can Perry define “Energy”?
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