EPA Also Freezes Federal Grants
Employees at several federal agencies are being told they are no longer allowed to post public information to the public. Bans on communications outside their departments are being instituted at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and even the the National Park Service are being reported.
“The US Department of Agriculture has banned scientists and other employees in its main research division from publicly sharing everything from the summaries of scientific papers to USDA-branded tweets as it starts to adjust to life under the Trump administration,” BuzzFeed News reports.Â
In a department-wide email Sharon Drumm, chief of staff for the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) told employees “news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content,” is banned from being released to the public.
It is unclear if Drumm would require a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request to obtain the simplest of information going forward, or even if that would be honored.
The USDA is far from alone.
“Multiple federal agencies have told their employees to cease communications with members of Congress and the press,” The Huffington Post reports. “Officials at sub-agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services, for example, have been told not to send ‘any correspondence to public officials’ according to a memo shared with HuffPost.”
It’s unclear if these information bans are coming from the White House, or are in response to a White House attack on the National Park Service, which was berated by the Trump administration after it retweeted an image comparing the crowd sizes of Donald Trump’s inauguration to that of President Barack Obama’s.
The Huffington Post notes that “there also appears to be a lockdown on external communication at the Environmental Protection Agency. As HuffPost reported Monday, a memo went out within the agency following a briefing for communication directors.”
The memo said there would be no press releases, social media posts or blog messages until further notice. It also asked for a list of external speaking engagements for staff and any planned webinars. It warned that listservs would be reviewed and that staff should “only send out critical messages, as messages can be shared broadly and end up in the press.â€
The EPA has also frozen its grants, sources told HuffPost on Monday. ProPublica later confirmed that freeze, as well as a stop on federal contracts, in an interview with transition sources.
According to CNN, this was the tweet the NPS retweeted, which drew that anger of the White House:
That retweet has since been deleted. This was posted next:
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer Tuesday at 1:52 PM EST was asked about the “gag” during the press briefing and responded he had no information to share but would look into it:
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