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Energy Department Refuses To Give Trump Team Names of People Who Worked On Climate Change (businessinsider.com)
The Department of Energy said Tuesday it will reject the request by President-elect Donald Trump's transition team to name staffers who worked on climate change programs. Energy spokesman Eben Burnhan-Snyder said the agency received "significant feedback" from workers regarding a questionnaire from the transition team that leaked last week. From a Reuters story, syndicated on BusinessInsider: The response from the Energy Department could signal a rocky transition for the president-elect's energy team and potential friction between the new leadership and the staffers who remain in place. The memo sent to the Energy Department on Tuesday and reviewed by Reuters last week contains 74 questions including a request for a list of all department employees and contractors who attended the annual global climate talks hosted by the United Nations within the last five years. "Our career workforce, including our contractors and employees at our labs, comprise the backbone of (the Energy Department) and the important work our department does to benefit the American people," Eben Burnham-Snyder, Energy Department spokesman said. "We are going to respect the professional and scientific integrity and independence of our employees at our labs and across our department," he added. "We will be forthcoming with all publicly available information with the transition team. We will not be providing any individual names to the transition team."
Good point and brings up one of the rally cries Trump has made during the campaign. Reform of Federal employee rights. He's not been shy one bit about it either. He intends to remove the protections many of the civil servants enjoy under his soon to be purposed "Reduction on Government Waste and Spending" program. So yeah, they are protected like you said, but Trump is literally gunning to remove that very thing and fire anyone who isn't an ass kisser. So great point you bring up but already addressed. This proposal from Trump to Congress is all but a forgone conclusion. The bigger question will be if Congress will give the President this new power. Who knows, but if anything is for sure, it's that there will be massive amount of spin from every direction when it finally hits committee.