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The Trump administration has frozen grants and contracts by the Environmental Protection Agency, according to ProPublica, and blocked employees from providing updates on this change via social media. This could have big effects on the agency's budget and severely undercut its efforts.
In an email obtained by ProPublica, one EPA contractor writes that: "The new EPA administration has asked that all contract and grant awards be temporarily suspended, effective immediately. Until we receive further clarification, this includes task orders and work assignments."
Also, employees have been banned from providing updates to reporters or on social media. The internal memo specifies that no press releases will go out to external audiences, there will be "no blog messages" and media requests will be carefully screened. (Interestingly, the Department of Energy, a fellow federal agency, recently released new guidelines that specifically protects contractors and ensures that they can state their personal opinions.)
Source: The Verge
takyon: Here are some related stories happening at the same time:
USDA scrambles to ease concerns after researchers were ordered to stop publishing news releases, other documents
USDA disavows gag-order emailed to scientific research unit
Commerce nominee Ross promises to protect "peer-reviewed research" at NOAA
CDC postpones climate conference ahead of Trump takeover
Badlands National Park goes rogue with climate-change tweets
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 25 2017, @08:11PM
And from my undergraduate college, 30 years ago, I've hopped around a bunch of universities and colleges over the years. Most have undertaken some sort of reduction of their library collections (particularly of expensive research journals) due to spiraling costs.
The point here is that a lot of institutions, including government institutions, have been cutting back on their libraries for a long time. Just because libraries are being cut back in Canada doesn't mean that it's an intentional effort to destroy politically inconvenient research. Note the following from the "What's Driving Chaotic Dismantling of Canada's Science Libraries?":
Many collections such as the Maurice Lamontagne Institute Library in Mont-Joli, Quebec ended up in dumpsters while others such as Winnipeg's historic Freshwater Institute library were scavenged by citizens, scientists and local environmental consultants. Others were burned or went to landfills, say scientists.
and
In a private email originally sent to a colleague and then shared with The Tyee, one scientist compared the dismemberment of the Freshwater Institute library last week to a rummage sale: "I did manage to salvage a few bits and pieces, one of which was a three volume print version of the data that went into the now extinct DFO toxins database."
The scientist suggested "that interested individuals should drop-in and loot [the] library before the bonfires begin."
My reason for the emphasis on these parts is that data was tossed not destroyed, and various parties had an opportunity to pick over what was discarded. If they were intending to destroy knowledge, I don't believe that would have happened, particularly since salvaging is likely to preserve some of the most inconvenient materials that were being tossed.
Instead, I think it's a fairly obvious thing. The Harper government was downsizing government, particularly, the parts that they don't value. These libraries were part of that.