Trump's EPA Freeze and Media Blackout Triggers Instant Backlash

In office less than a week, President Donald Trump triggered outcry from California leaders Tuesday by barring any new Environmental Protection Agency contracts or grants. The administration also instituted a media blackout that prohibits the agency's staff from communicating to reporters or to the public through blog posts and social media.

The EPA, long a target of Republicans who believe it over-regulates industry, is responsible for helping to ensure clean drinking water and cleaning up the nation’s most polluted toxic waste sites, 94 of which are in California. A spokesman for the Trump transition team said the blackout and freeze on new projects would be temporary, according to the Associated Press.

Still, it set off alarms in California, where state leaders have positioned themselves at the vanguard of the opposition to Trump’s environmental policies.

"This administration is launching direct attacks on truth and transparency in our gov’t. Very troubling -- and honestly, anti-democratic," tweeted Sen. Kamala Harris.

“President Trump is putting California communities at risk,” California Lt. Gov Gavin Newsom said.

“In 2016, EPA provided California with $182 million for drinking water and waste water infrastructure,” he said in a written release. “These funds go to small and large communities who need to build or rebuild their aging systems. This money helps prevent a future Flint from happening.”

The agency also enforces cleanup at toxic “Superfund” sites where pollution threatens surrounding communities and drinking water supplies. Neighborhood gas stations that leaked cancer causing chemicals into the ground, major manufacturers that illegally dispose of industrial solvents, and leaky toxic waste storage facilities are just some of the types of Superfund sites that the EPA handles in California.

Click here to find the Superfund sites near you.

“And the EPA utilizes private contractors to clean the nation’s most toxic sites. There are ninety-four of these ‘Superfund’ sites in California, twenty-three of which are in Silicon Valley, more than any other area in the country,” added Newsom. “These sites often border communities, and are overseen by the EPA. They demand around-the-clock attention during high rain events, similar to those we have just experienced and in response to which, Governor Brown just declared a state of emergency in fifty California counties.”

A Trump spokesman downplayed the executive actions.

"We're just trying to get a handle on everything and make sure what goes out reflects the priorities of the new administration," Doug Ericksen, the spokesman for Trump's transition team at EPA, told the Associated Press.

Legislators around the nation also reacted with dismay Tuesday.

“Denying science and muzzling agencies benefits no one other than the special interests Trump’s trying to protect,” tweeted Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden.

Within hours of the bans, free speech advocates and tech workers began tweeting tips and links for getting around the gag order to EPA staffers.

Photo: by Casey Deshong, Public Domain