Trump Administration Planning Climate Purge?

According to reporting from POLITICO and Bloomberg, President-elect Donald Trump’s Energy Department transition team has asked the agency for the names of employees and contractors who worked on climate policy during the Obama administration.

A questionnaire asks for a list of DOE workers who have attended United Nations climate change meetings, as well as those who have worked on the “social cost of carbon.”

Earlier reports from Trump’s NASA transition team indicate that his administration will try to dismantle America’s world class earth and climate science research programs in an effort to undermine the world’s ability to even monitor changes to our climate.

In response, Sierra Club Global Climate Policy Director John Coequyt released the following statement:

“It looks like Trump and his administration are planning a political witch hunt which has no place in American government: purging or marginalizing anyone who has worked on the issue of climate change. And that’s at the same time they are looking for ways to eliminate the very scientific infrastructure we need to monitor changes to our planet and its climate. You can’t purge physics from planet earth, and seas will keep rising regardless.”