Press are directed to the Press Office, which is also silenced
Obviously I can’t vouch for this, because it’s anonymous, so keep that in mind – but for what it’s worth, this is being passed around on Facebook:
From an EPA staffer:
“So I work at the EPA and yeah it’s as bad as you are hearing:
The entire agency is under lockdown, the website, facebook, twitter, you name it is static and can’t be updated. All reports, findings, permits and studies are frozen and not to be released. No presentations or meetings with outside groups are to be scheduled.
Any Press contacting us are to be directed to the Press Office which is also silenced and will give no response.
All grants and contracts are frozen from the contractors working on Superfund sites to grad school students working on their thesis.
We are still doing our work, writing reports, doing cancer modeling for pesticides hoping that this is temporary and we will be able to serve the public soon. But many of us are worried about an ideologically-fueled purging and if you use any federal data I advise you gather what you can now.
We have been told the website is being reworked to reflect the new administration’s policy.
Feel free to copy and paste, you all pay for the government and you should know what’s going on. I am posting this as a fellow citizen and not in any sort of official capacity.”
It’s consistent with what the news media are reporting, but with some more details.
It’s consistent with what’s being reported elsewhere and not at all consistent with a cautious new administration. Seriously: freezing the funding of grad students?
Coastal elite.