The Environmental Protection Agency ordered three of its scientists who were scheduled to discuss climate change at a conference on Monday in Rhode Island to cancel their appearance, The New York Times reported on Sunday.
EPA spokesman John Konkus confirmed the scientists would not speak at the State of the Narragansett Bay and Watershed program in Providence, but gave no further explanation.
Many were surprised at the last-minute cancellation, because the EPA helps to fund the program and the scientists were major contributors to a 400-page report to be issued on Monday which shows that climate change has affected air and water temperatures, precipitation, sea level and fish in and around the bay.
But the decision illustrates the widespread concern that the EPA under President Donald Trump will do everything it can to silence those who warn about climate change.
“It’s definitely a blatant example of the scientific censorship we all suspected was going to start being enforced at EPA,” University of Rhode Island oceanography Prof. John King told the Times. “They don’t believe in climate change, so I think what they’re trying to do is stifle discussions of the impacts of climate change.”
Under EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, the agency has eliminated from its four-year strategic plan the need to address climate change or even a mention of the phrase itself, CNN reported earlier this month.
Pruitt has questioned the extent to which climate change is caused by human activities.
His proposed budget for 2018 would get rid of the National Estuary Program that funds the Narragansett Bay Estuary Program and 27 other such similar projects nationwide, according to the Times.
Monday’s conference is meant to emphasize the importance of keeping clean Narragansett Bay, which is the largest estuary in New England and vital to the region’s tourism and fishing industries.
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