The Headlines:
Trump White House Distorts Wages Figure on First Day
January 20, 2017 | Climate Central
“The figure was based on a paper produced by a Louisiana State University finance professor in 2015 on behalf of a fossil fuel industry nonprofit. The paper, which was not peer reviewed, investigated potential economic impacts if all protected federal lands were opened to unlimited oil, gas and coal mining.”
All References to Climate Change Have Been Deleted From the White House Website
January 20, 2017 | Vice Motherboard
January 20, 2017 | Vox
January 20, 2017 | Reuters
“The California plan includes an extension of the state’s controversial carbon cap-and-trade program and calls for the state’s oil refineries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent.”
Climate Regulations Under a Watchful Internet Eye
January 23, 2017 | InsideClimate News
“Columbia has tracked climate change-related regulations since 2009, but this tool was developed in anticipation that the new administration would seek “to undo regulations to avoid dealing with climate change,” said Michael Burger, the center’s executive director.”
Donald Trump plans to ‘reform’ the way environmental agency uses science, report claims
January 23, 2017 | Independent
“”Unless major reforms of the agency’s use of science and economics are achieved, EPA will be able to return to its bad old ways as soon as an establishment administration takes office,” the document reads, according to the website Axios. The document was written by Myrion Ebell, the site claimed, who has aggressively opposed climate change activists and has been central in the Trump transition team.”
A Bad Day for the Environment, With Many More To Come
January 24, 2017 | The New Yorker, Bill McKibben
“Reality gets plainer every day on a planet that just saw the hottest year ever recorded, where sea ice is at an all-time low, and where California’s epic drought has suddenly given way to epic flooding. History will judge the timing of Trump’s crusade with special harshness—it is, you might say, a last-gasp effort.”
January 24, 2017 | The Washington Post
“For now, it appears, that funding is on hold, casting a cloud of uncertainty over one of the agency’s core functions, as well as over the scientists, state and local officials, universities and Native American tribes that often benefit from the grants.”
January 24, 2017 | Earthjustice
“This move is legally questionable, at best. And based on what we know about Trump’s financial dealings in the Dakota Access pipeline, it raises serious ethical concerns.”
Keystone XL, Dakota Pipeline Green-Lighted in Trump Executive Actions
January 24, 2017 | InsideClimate News
“The economics for finishing the Dakota Access pipeline are more favorable as the pipeline is already more than 90 percent complete.”
Wilbur Ross commits to protecting climate and weather research from censorship
January 24, 2017 | Mashable
“If confirmed, I intend to see that the Department provides the public with as much factual and accurate data as we have available. It is public tax dollars that support the Department’s scientific research, and barring some national security concern, I see no valid reason to keep peer reviewed research from the public.”
January 25, 2017 | The Guardian
“The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Agriculture have been placed under de facto gag orders by the Trump administration, according to documents obtained by news organizations.”
January 25, 2017 | Reuters
“”If the website goes dark, years of work we have done on climate change will disappear,” one of the EPA staffers told Reuters, who added some employees were scrambling to save some of the information housed on the website, or convince the Trump administration to preserve parts of it.”
USDA lifts gag order: report
January 25, 2017 | The Hill
“After a report that the agency had told staff to stop releasing any “news releases, photos, fact sheets, news feeds, and social media content,” BuzzFeed reported that another memo was sent Tuesday night from a top official for the department’s Agricultural Research Service that the original order should not have been issued and “is hereby rescinded.””
January 25, 2017 | The Washington Post
““We’ll take a look at what’s happening so that the voice coming from the EPA is one that’s going to reflect the new administration,” he said.”
EPA Science Under Scrutiny By Trump Political Staff
January 25, 2017 | AP
“Asked specifically about scientific data being collected by agency scientists, such as routine monitoring of air and water pollution, Ericksen responded, “Everything is subject to review.””
January 26, 2017 | Vox
“But on another level, even if some of the early outrage has been overheated, it’s hardly a mystery why there’s a lot of dread and uncertainty about the EPA right now. You just have to look at what happened at the agency during the George W. Bush years — and also at what Trump’s team have explicitly said they want to do. The widespread fear that we might soon see a Trump “war on science” at the agency is hardly unfounded.”
January 26, 2017 | The Washington Post
“Several State Department Web pages housing individual Obama-era climate reports have also disappeared, including the 2014 U.S. Climate Action Report to the United Nations and several reports from the U.S.-China Climate Change Working Group, among others. These reports can still be accessed through the archives.”
January 26, 2017 | NPR
“The TransCanada announcement came just two days after President Trump took executive actions to speed the approval process for both the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines.”
January 26, 2017 | The Guardian
“The comments by Spicer – who has proved himself capable of delivering falsehoods from the press briefing podium – are at odds with a report from the Associated Press that employees at the Environmental Protection Agency were expressly banned from tweeting, issuing press releases or speaking with reporters by the administration.”
In other news…
Scientists Are Planning the Next Big Washington March
January 25, 2017 | Climate Central
““This is not a partisan issue. People from all parts of the political spectrum should be alarmed by these efforts to deny scientific progress,” Caroline Weinberg, a medical researcher who is helping organize the march, said. “Scientific research moves us forward and we should not allow asinine policies to thwart it.””
Mysterious Twitter account steps forward to lead the National Park resistance
January 26, 2017 | Mashable
“While the Trump administration continues to play whack-a-mole with rebellious National Parks Service Twitter accounts, a new account has sprung up to fill the void and lead this new resistance online.”
100 days of climate 
[…] the first two weekly round of headlines (here and here) shows a nearly unprecedented attack on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). A […]
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