Scoop from Bloomberg news. A memo sent to the Energy Department suggests that the Trump team is trying to weed out staffers who have worked on President Barack Obama‘s agenda to combat climate change:
Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump are developing plans to reshape Energy Department programs, help keep aging nuclear plants online and identify staff who played a role in promoting President Barack Obama’s climate agenda.
The transition team has asked the agency to list employees and contractors who attended United Nations climate meetings, along with those who helped develop the Obama administration’s social cost of carbon metrics, used to estimate and justify the climate benefits of new rules. The advisers are also seeking information on agency loan programs, research activities and the basis for its statistics, according to a five-page internal document circulated by the Energy Department on Wednesday. The document lays out 65 questions from the Trump transition team, sources within the agency said.
Trump is widely expected to pick a friend of the fossil fuel industry to head the department. He’s already done so at the Environmental Protection Agency, where tabbing climate change denier Scott Pruitt, earning an attaboy from the lobbyist Dustin McDaniel.
p.s. Meanwhile, various news outlets are reporting that Trump has picked Goldman Sachs president and Chief Operating Officer Gary Cohn to be National Economic Council Director. Populism! Trump will continue to say weird stuff, but his election continues to bring stocking stuffers for big corporations and the rich.