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Published on January 25th, 2017 | by Joshua S Hill

January 25th, 2017 by Joshua S Hill

Donald Trump has put to rest any doubts that he would be a terrible President for the US environment this week, by freezing all EPA grant funding programs and literally censoring the agency and its employees, declaring environmentalism out of control, and reviving the controversial Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines.

So, that bodes well

In a meeting Tuesday with automotive executives, Donald Trump informed them that he will halt unnecessary environmental regulations, making it easier for General Motors, Ford, and Fiat Chrysler to build plants in the United States.

In doing so, Donald Trump informed the executives that I am, to a large extent, an environmentalist. I believe in it, but its out of control.

It has also been reported that Donald Trumps administration has imposed a freeze on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), halting all its grant programs which provide critical funding for research, development of former industrial sites, and air quality monitoring, among other things.

The freeze is almost certainly one-of-a-kind, and sources inside the EPA have expressed their surprise and shock at the move.

As of the moment, it is unclear whether the freeze is indefinite or temporary, however one source quoted byThe Huffington Post said that a review of all grants would be completed by Friday.

Numerous reports have also revealed that the Trump administration has clamped down on the free exchange of information from several agencies, including the EPA, Department of Agriculture, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Specifically,The Huffington Post received the following memo which explains the draconian measures that have suddenly been implemented:

I just returned from a briefing for Communication Directors where the following information was provided. These restrictions are effective immediately and will remain in place until further direction is received from the new Administrations Beach Team. Please review this material and share with all appropriate individuals in your organization. If anyone on your staff receives a press inquiry of any kind, it must be referred to me so I can coordinate with the appropriate individuals in OPA.

I will provide updates to this information as soon as I receive it.

The EPA is also scrambling to save its climate change page from its website, after being ordered to remove the climate change page entirely.If the website goes dark, years of work we have done on climate change will disappear, one of the EPA staffers told Reuters, who also informed Reuters that some of the EPAs employees had begun trying to save some of the information housed on its website, while also trying to convince the Trump administration to preserve at least parts of the website.

Further censorship action has been revealed as the Badlands National Park Twitter account found itself the source of plenty of attention. The National Park Service Twitter account had already been briefly suspended following its publication of accurate information regarding the size of this years Inauguration crowd. On Tuesday, the Badlands National Park Twitter account posted several Tweets reporting scientifically accurate information, which have since been taken down.

Unsurprisingly, this bevy of censorship has not gone unnoticed.

These actions will stem the free flow of information and have a chilling effect on staff in these agencies, said Sam Adams, US Director, World Resources Institute. This flies in the face of effective policymaking which requires an open exchange of ideas, supported by the best science and evidence available. Curtailing communications from these agencies will hinder their ability to provide clean air and water and protect peoples health across the country. The administration should lift these bans as soon as possible and ensure that the role of science is respected within our government agencies.

Finally, to top off a surreal day, President Trump signed executive orders which would begin a renegotiating process of the highly disputed Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines.

This is with regard to the construction of the Keystone pipeline, something thats been in dispute and its subject to renegotiation by us, said Donald Trump as he signed the executive orders. Were going to renegotiate some of the terms and if theyd like, well see if we can get that pipeline built.

So that bodes well

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Tags: Badlands National Park, censorship, Dakota, Dakota Access, Donald Trump, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, keystone, Keystone XL, trump, united states, US

Joshua S Hill I'm a Christian, a nerd, a geek, and I believe that we're pretty quickly directing planet-Earth into hell in a handbasket! I also write for Fantasy Book Review (.co.uk), and can be found writing articles for a variety of other sites. Check me out at about.me for more.

Excerpt from:
Trump's War On Environment Begins Anew With Censorship, Halting EPA Funding, & Revitalizing Keystone XL ... - CleanTechnica