We were asked by a reader if President-Elect Donald Trump requested a list of climate change supporters? The short answer to this is “yes.”
According to Bloomberg, the Trump transition team asked the Energy Department to “list employees and contractors who attended United Nations climate meetings, along with those who helped develop the Obama administration’s social cost of carbon metrics, used to estimate and justify the climate benefits of new rules.” The team is also seeking information on “agency loan programs, research activities and the basis for its statistics,” according to a five-page internal document circulated by the Energy Department on Wednesday. The document lays out 65 questions from the Trump transition team, sources within the agency said (Bloomberg).
Bloomberg goes on to say the document was confirmed by two Energy Department employees, who said agency staff were “unsettled” by the request. Someone in Trump’s transition team also confirmed the authenticity of the document according to Bloomberg. Unfortunately, the document is not available to the public at this time.
In response to this, Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, sent a letter to Trump warning that any punishment of agency workers carrying out policies his administration doesn’t agree with “would be tantamount to an illegal modern-day political witch hunt, and would have a profoundly chilling impact on our dedicated federal workforce (Bloomberg).”
Several sources including ABC News, Bloomberg and Reuters attempted to contact the Trump transition team but they did not immediately reply to requests for comment on this story.
In summary, the Trump transition team did request a list of people who work on climate change “policies.” This is not the same as requesting a list of “supporters.” We rate the claim Mostly True.
Dave Van Zandt
Sources:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-climate-idUSKBN13Y2R6
http://www.markey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2016-12-09-Markey-PresidentTrump-DOE.pdf
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