Democratic Sen. Tom Udall is demanding an explanation from President-elect Donald Trump about a list of 74 questions that his transition team sent to Energy Department staff that appears to be singling out employees for their work on climate change.
“The badgering tone of the questionnaire and its focus on particular meetings and emails related to important climate change work are troubling, and I urge the Trump transition team to clarify their intent as soon as possible,” the New Mexico senator said in a public statement made Monday.
Udall is the top Democrat on two subcommittees that deal directly with environment and energy issues in the Senate Appropriations and Foreign Relations committees. Both panels would be at the center of addressing any move by the Trump administration to leave last year’s Paris climate change agreement as well as extending funding for Trump’s environmental priorities at the Environmental Protection Agency.
Udall made the statement as Trump was preparing to meet with former Texas Gov. Rick Perry on his potential appointment as energy secretary.
“I hope it isn’t to single out civil servants who are contributing important work to our understanding of climate change,” Udall said. He said the nation’s security relies on the Energy Department’s fleet of national labs as an “honest” and “unbiased” source of scientific information and advice to the president and his Cabinet.
“Different administrations have different policies and goals, but objective, scientific work should be a bipartisan priority,” Udall said.
Trump’s energy transition team, being led by Tom Pyle, the president of the free-market American Energy Alliance, began circulating the questionnaire late last week, asking for information on which employees have traveled to United Nations climate change conferences. It also wanted information on the highest paid staff at the national labs and what websites employees visited, among other questions.
