Energy Dept. Rejects Trump Team’s Request To ID Climate Staffers

The Energy Department has rejected a request from Donald Trump’s transition team to list staffers at the department who were engaged in climate policy under the Obama administration.

“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. Some of the questions asked left many in our workforce unsettled,” Energy Department Spokesman Eben Burnham-Snyder said in a statement first reported by the Washington Post. “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. We are going to respect the professional and scientific integrity and independence of our employees at our labs and across our department.”

“We will be forthcoming with all publically-available information with the transition team. We will not be providing any individual names to the transition team,” Burnham-Snyder added.

The Trump transition team sent a questionnaire to the department that circulated last week, asking for a list of employees and contractors who attended United Nations meetings on climate as well as a list of staffers and contractors who attended meetings for the interagency working group on the social cost of carbon, a metric used by the Obama administration to determine how carbon pollution would impact the economy.

The questionnaire also asked which programs at the Energy Department are “essential to meeting the goals of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan.”