Names of DOE Climate Change Staff Requested

Names of DOE Climate Change Staff Requested

On December 6, 2016, a member of the Trump transition team for the Department of Energy (DOE) distributed a survey requesting information about DOE staff working on climate change. The survey, which consisted of seventy-four questions, asked for the names of staff and contractors who had attended U.N. climate meetings. It also asked for the names of those who had attended meetings on the social cost of carbon, a metric that federal agencies use in assessing the costs and benefits of climate and other regulations. It also asked for a list of all the professional society memberships of staff at DOE’s 17 national laboratories and all of their recent publications.

DOE refused to comply with the request and the Trump transition team subsequently disavowed. A spokesperson for the team stated that the survey had been sent without authorization and without following protocol and that the person who sent it had been “properly counseled.”