EPA staff to attend Alaska Summit cut in half

Washington DC (Bloomberg) -- Just three days before this week’s environment conference in Alaska, the top EPA official in Anchorage called the organizer with some news: The agency had been instructed by the White House to slash the number of EPA staffers who could attend.

"We’ve never had this happen before," said Kurt Eilo, who has organized the Alaska Forum on the Environment for 19 years. The annual gathering brings together 1,800 people from native communities, government agencies and the public to discuss climate-related issues, including melting permafrost and risks to villages from rising seas.

There had been 34 EPA staffers registered; in the end, only half were allowed to go. The agency says the late change -- including scrapping the travel of some senior staff from Washington -- was about saving money for American taxpayers.

The travel change is one more sign of how President Donald Trump is taking a different approach to energy and environment. Federal workers and environmentalists say they are unnerved by what’s been done so far: from deleted web pages on climate change to cuts in staffing at the office in the Department of Energy responsible for science research.

Policy Mark

"It’s clearly wrong and counterproductive to restrict EPA staff from attending meetings pertinent to the agency’s mission," Melinda Pierce, legislative director for the Sierra Club, said in an e-mail. "This raises important questions about government transparency and public access to important information."

Administration spokesmen say Trump is putting his mark on policy in ways he had promised. He blasted EPA regulations during the campaign, and has dubbed climate change a "hoax." The former head of his EPA transition team says funding for the agency should be cut by two thirds and Barack Obama’s Climate Action Plan rescinded.

Since the inauguration, officials have rewritten EPA web pages describing how the U.S. is working with states and other countries to address climate change. An EPA page of "common questions" about climate change was initially slimmed down, with some queries ("How does carbon dioxide hurt us?" and "Is there a scientific consensus on climate change?") deleted altogether.

At the State Department, a "Climate Action Report" page that previously referenced how the U.S. is working "to deliver on our climate goals and to support our global partners" has disappeared. Visitors now see an error page instead.